Her Twisted Providence
by Maat
Summary: Christine's life slips dangerously out of control as the shadow stalking her begins to manipulate her world. Month by month everything she believes in shatters as the stakes rise to include her life, her freedom and even her sanity. DarkModern Lerouxbased
1. November Chills

A/N: As I near the end of _Her Twisted Providence _I am editing the whole story chapter by chapter, until I am satisfied with a final polished version. No big changes will occur, but HTP is my baby, and I want to leave it on the best note possible. So as I revise, please continue to enjoy and review what, rather unexpectedly, turned out to be one of the darkest stories I´ve ever written, not to mention one of the most fun to write.

Happy reading!

-Maat, July 10, 2009

* * *

**Her Twisted Providence**

**Chapter One: November Chills**

The threat of rain hovered in the air, the dirty sky over the city smudged with gray and brown, the trees lank and bare. Outside, students stood with mittens and scarves to ward off the early chill, small dots of color in the fading light.

She brushed a strand of pale blonde hair away from her eyes as she turned her face to the twilight. She hated how the winter stole the light from the day, slowly cutting off pieces of time until nothing existed but wan grey and cold nights.

She tried to focus on the book in front of her but the library was so stiflingly warm and the small crack in the window was letting a cold breeze flow past her face and if she closed her eyes for one moment she could just _forget…_

"Chris!"

She snapped her head up, hands rising to rub her eyes. A small boned, painfully thin girl was leaning over her, dark hair pulled tautly away from her face, exaggerating her sharp, prominent features and deep-set eyes.

Christine blinked, her brain still fuzzy, her cheeks flushed with the room's heavy heat. "I just closed my eyes for a second, Meg. What time is it?"

"It's almost two and the library is about to close."

"Two?" she yelped, pulling herself to her feet. "Oh God, I didn't even finish my readings…"

Meg frowned at her. "You have to stop working yourself so hard."

"But I need…" Christine gestured wildly, her hair straggly and the imprint of words running down her cheek from where she had rested her head.

"You need to relax and not kill yourself!" Meg could hear her own mother in her voice, that tight mixture of concern and snappish anger. She took a deep breath. "Come on, let's go before they turn the lights out."

Christine gave her the look of a drowning child. "What am I going to do?" she whispered, on the edge of a breakdown. "I need to finish this but I need to go tomorrow, I need to…" she drew a deep breath, willing herself not to cry. "Tomorrow is three years. I have to go. But I have to finish this, I can't disappoint him…"

Meg had heard Christine say that phrase so many times it was driving her crazy: after a difficult test, a failed audition, whispered at night as she cried when she thought Meg couldn't hear, breathed fretfully in church when she clenched her eyes as if making a wish.

"You'll finish it in time, and you'll get to go." Meg took a breath before finishing bluntly: "And maybe you need to stop living for your father." She turned and walked toward the door, unable to take that look on her friend's face any longer. "You coming? Oh, and you have ink on your face."

Christine rushed after her, rubbing her face in a hurt, sullen sort of way, and as they left the room the security camera turned slightly, quietly, as if to watch them go. Neither girl noticed.

The night was bitterly cold, and as they emerged from the library their feet crunched on early frost. Christine paused for a moment to survey the sky. The stars were barely visible in the city's haze, and the pollution had tinted the hovering clouds a coal red, but the night was cold and the moon so big. She breathed in gratefully.

Maybe Meg was right. Maybe everything could be okay.

The moment broke as she stepped into the streetlight, lightly jogging to catch up to her friend's smaller figure. The glassy air slapped color into her cheeks and brought clarity to her image.

She had a soft featured, almost blurred face, like she was looking at the world through the haze of a faded black-and-white photograph, like if anyone looked at her too closely she would fade and disappear. She was ephemeral, barely there: so thin and sickly pale, her yellow hair clouded around her face and shoulders, her eyes wide and grey, her face round, her mouth small. She started running, long legs flying, running even as she passed Meg, moving toward her apartment and cutting through the night air until her lungs ached. She wanted to keep running forever without thinking, with only the night and the cold and the sky.

But as she reached her door and waited for Meg as she always did, and the security camera glared down at her as it always did, the pain came back, as it always did.

Tomorrow she would go to her father's grave. Tomorrow she would try one more time to say goodbye.

"You should be on the track team." Meg jogged up behind her. "Feel better?"

"Yes," she lied, pushing her lank hair out of her eyes. "Yeah, I'm okay."

They entered the dimly lit apartment building in silence, took the elevator to the top floor, and tramped into the small, dorm-style one bedroom apartment. Christine knew that Meg wanted to talk to her more, possibly about the upcoming day, but she couldn't take it. Her small bed looked warm and inviting; she fell into it without even changing into pajamas, and slept and dreamed, as always, of beautiful music.

November tenth dawned bright and frozen, and the light crept over Christine's sheets like a thief, robbing her of sleep and graceful dreams. She pulled herself up and rubbed her eyes, her hair knotted and flattened against her head. She yawned hugely, shivered, and pulled a heavy book onto her bed; finals were only three weeks away and she would get no other work done that day.

Christine glanced over at Meg, snuggled comfortably on her side of the room, only the top of her head visible as she snored softly. '_How easily she sleeps_,' she mused. _'Does she hear the music at night, too? Does she dream of beautiful things?'_

A laugh caught in her throat. Sometimes she acted as if the dreams were real, as if some divine voice was really singing to her, playing her father's violin and leading her into the warmth of quiet sleep. As if such a voice could exist, outside of an angel.

How childish.

Christine's father taught her about angels just as other children were raised on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. He fed her mind with stories, made her believe that anything could be hers if she tried hard enough, that angels guarded her every move, that happiness was inevitable. He kept her a child, catered to her, built her a lovely, delicate glass house that protected her from the world but shattered when she breathed.

'_How could you leave me?'_ she thought desperately. '_I miss you so much, so so much and I'm so alone, I feel like I'm choking! How can I live like this? Why did you leave me? Daddy!'_

Christine wrapped her arms around her thin frame and cried, small gasps of breath as she tried to stay quiet. She cried until her face was red and puffy, her eyes ringed and dull, until drops of water hit the page of the heavy book still on her lap, blurring the words into jumble.

'_I'm such a drama queen,'_ she thought bitterly after she had calmed down. '_How Meg deals with me I'll never know. Always crying, always panicking… I'm such a child. She's right, I should get over it. It's been three years. I can't do this anymore.'_

Three years. It was a long time, but every morning as she woke up and lingered in that in-between place of dream and reality she still expected to hear his voice.

In school Christine pushed herself hard, but despite her best efforts the business classes produced nothing but stress and apathy. She knew that she never really wanted a job in business anyway, but it seemed a solid choice, and he had been so enthusiastic when she told him. He wanted her to have a real job, to provide for herself, to pull herself out of the respective poverty that she had grown up in.

He had wanted her to sing as well, to revel in an art as he had the violin and her mother had with her paintbrushes, and again it was only his desire that kept her from abandoning her once coveted dream. She hated it now, hated forcing the music from her throat, but she auditioned and occasionally received parts, and sang every day, for him. She worked and struggled in a life that she hated, alone, for praise she would never get, to make proud a man who had been fading to dust for three years.

'_What else am I to do, except what you wanted? It's all I've ever known about my future,'_ she thought resignedly. '_You're the only person who ever really loved me; you're everything in my life that ever mattered. I don't even care what happens anymore.'_

The only time Christine ever found peace was when she slept, when she dreamed of music, the music she was sure her father was sending to her. It was her sign that she was doing the right thing, that he was proud and that maybe there really were angels to guard her.

Christine closed the heavy book with a sigh and pulled herself out of bed to pad across the floor in old socks. Taking a chipped mug out of the cupboard she filled it with water and stuck it in the microwave before digging in a small wooden box for her favorite tea. She put bread in the toaster and fished out the jam from the refrigerator. Every move she made was automatic, the same every day, and when she opened the jar to find out that there was no jam left she had a moment of just not knowing what to do.

Meg stumbled into the kitchen just as Christine was finishing off her second piece of dry toast and smiled blearily.

"There's butter in the side door, you twit," she muttered before shutting herself in the bathroom, and Christine blushed.

An hour later, showered and clean, her hair bundled under a wool cap and her body hidden under the folds of her father's ancient, over-large pea coat, she took Meg's car keys with the solemn promise that she would bring it back intact.

"And don't you dare go daydreaming again," Meg ranted. "Remember that dent you brought back with you last time? I don't want you to listen to any music; just concentrate on the road. And don't go too fast!"

"Yes, mother," Christine recited in a dull voice as she walked into the hallway.

"Or too slow!" Meg called after her. "And if you think the engine's starting to overheat you can…"

The end of her sentence was cut off by the elevator doors closing. Christine slouched against the back panel, idly playing with the frayed ends of her coat. She knew she wasn't the best driver, but Meg harped on her too much sometimes.

'_I am grateful,'_ she thought wearily. '_I just didn't need that before I left. God, I'm so tired of all of this.'_

The sky was grey as she stepped outside and the air was heavy with the smell of impending rain. The frost from the night before was gone, but in its place the ground was mushy and wet, clinging to her shoes as she walked. The security camera tilted almost thoughtfully as it watched her climb into the car and drive away, and as she disappeared into the distance its small blinking red light faded and went out.

The hour car ride seemed achingly slow, and by the time she stood at the edge of the graveyard the clouds covered the sun and the temperature had dropped painfully.

Christine shifted from foot to foot like a child, a few small flowers clutched in her hand. She didn't want to pass through the gate. Being in that place of death, seeing his headstone was like realizing he was truly gone all over again.

Slowly she stepped forward, and the wind sighed, urging her on.

His grave came into sight, emerging from behind the other faded clusters of granite. It was small, tucked off to the side, faded and out-of-place amid family plots that were meticulously clean and surrounded by flowers. Carefully she knelt by it and brushed some of the dirt away.

"Hi, Daddy," she whispered, pulling out weeds with studied concentration, as if the headstone were a face she could not look into. "I know I haven't been here for a while, and look at you, you're all overgrown." She threw the weeds to the side. "I'm sorry. I should take better care of you, shouldn't I? But you know how I've never been able to stand graveyards…" she trailed off, not sure of what to say after being away for so long.

"I'm sure you know how life is now, I mean you're watching over me, aren't you? But things aren't working out the way we thought they would. I'm unhappy, Daddy. I'm alone." She looked up at the words engraved in front of her and ran one finger along his name, tracing the letters. "What am I without you?"

She paused, unsure of how to continue. "I know that you told me to never give up, and I've tried, I really have. But I'm so _tired_, so tired of all of this. I don't know what to do." She bent her forehead to the cool stone as if in prayer. "Please tell me what to do."

She waited in that pose, but there was nothing but still air and distant noises.

And then, the violin.

It was so quiet, the sound so light and far away that for a few moments Christine wasn't sure she heard it at all. But it was there, rising out of the air like a piece of her dreams, and Christine raised her head from the stone to listen with raptured joy.

She knew that it was not her father, or an angel. However much she liked to hope that such things as ghosts and angels existed, she was not stupid. She daydreamed, she fancied, but in the end she still had her feet planted in reality. Christine wanted to believe, but part of her was afraid that if she left her reservations behind and embraced her childhood beliefs she would truly lose touch with reality and the last small grip she had on a normal, rational life.

But still, the music was so divine, so achingly beautiful that she couldn't help but hope.

Carefully, silently, as if not to scare away that far-off player, Christine stood and looked around her. She spun in a slow circle, staring hard at the hills and tombs around her, but there was still no explanation for that soft, ethereal music. Finishing her turn, she stood once again facing her father's tombstone, and found herself looking at an impossibility.

There, balanced delicately on top of the granite, was a small sheaf of papers that had not been there when she stood up.

She stared at the papers cautiously, as if they might jump up and bite her. Quickly she scanned her surroundings again, but there was no one around.

'_This is impossible,'_ she thought, fear and curiosity winding their way through her stomach. '_Papers don't just appear out of nowhere. Maybe they were here the whole time and I didn't notice them.'_

Even in her head it sounded ridiculous.

Still glancing uneasily around and noting that the violin had stopped, she stuck out one trembling hand and took the papers from their resting place. Leafing through them, she realized at once what they were.

_Music._

A song: flowing, elegant, unlike any she had seen before. Written in her vocal range. Quietly she hummed a few bars, delighted at how lovely the tune was. Each note had its own resonance and beauty, and when strung together the result was smooth and clear.

It had words too, typed neatly onto the page in contrast to the tune's red, handwritten pattern. She had started to read them, intrigued, when something fell out from between the few pages and fluttered to the ground.

Trembling again, Christine bent to pick it up. It was a small piece of paper, neatly folded over once, the surface knotted and rough in the way handmade paper was. Carefully she opened it and stared at the scrawled red words in clumsy, childlike handwriting.

What did this mean? Where did this come from? How could someone have overheard her whispered conversation with a dead man? Her skin was cold even under the heavy coat, and she didn't know whether to cry or scream or smile. Instead she walked quickly back to the car, still scanning the graveyard for any sign of life, and only after she was safely locked inside the small vehicle did she open the note again and stare dazedly at the small red words.

'**Don't give up.'**


	2. December Elates

**Chapter Two: December Elates**

She hated auditions.

Performing Christine didn't mind; despite the pain of singing in a world without her father, the sensation of being onstage was almost calming. There was a powerful knowledge that she had been chosen above others, that she was worthy. In auditions it was the opposite: she was thrust into the spotlight to be picked-over and critiqued, and underlying it all was the stomach-sickening fear that she just might not be good enough.

Sighing, she paced the small grey hallway, the audition form clenched in a sweaty hand. As a theater major and an aspiring performer she felt the pressure to succeed close around her. She _needed _this. She needed to know that she was good, that she was making him proud.

'_Watch over me, dad,'_ Christine thought, letting her free hand drift to her gold crucifix necklace. '_Let me shine.'_

A number was called and her head instinctively jerked up. Only two left. Quietly she made her way to the stage door, rehearsing the song in silence as she walked. The very melody itself made her giddy, and she felt buoyed by its beauty.

When her number and name were called she straightened her shoulders and walked through the backstage and into the harsh lights. The theater was cast in darkness, but she knew there were people clustered together several rows from the front, waiting to grade her.

She opened her mouth and presented herself, relieved to hear that her voice came out clear and strong. "Hello, my name is Christine Danes and I will be singing an original composition."

One of the shadowy figures in the seats shifted slightly. "Excuse me? What is it? Does it have a name?"

"No, sir."

"Who wrote it?"

"I don't know, sir." Suddenly she was feeling stupid. What on earth had possessed her to use that strange piece?

Another voice sounded out of the darkness. "How will we know if you are off pitch if it is a song that no one has ever heard before?"

"I…" Christine paused, unsure of how to explain to them that with this song, you would just know. That it was impossible to sing a note incorrectly in this amazing piece without it jarring the flow. But she only shook her head and said, more confidently than she felt, "I will trust your judgment, sirs."

"Very well. Please begin, Miss Danes." There was disapproval in the voice.

Now was her chance. She smoothed her skirt with sweaty palms and breathed in from her diaphragm, slowly, carefully, molding her body into the familiar posture, positioning her head so that the line of her windpipe was straight and unimpeded, so that her notes would soar clear and high. Christine opened her mouth, and sang.

The song flowed well, and she hit the notes adequately, but her voice was still an imperfect instrument. She wobbled, stressed incorrectly, and didn't sustain her breathing well enough: the mistakes of an amateur. Still, she was certain that she sounded nice, if not a bit breathy and soft.

Christine found herself wanting to showcase the song even more than her voice. It was a thing of such strange beauty that she wanted someone else to realize its loveliness. It was important to her.

After she finished there was silence and the soft rustling of papers.

"That will do, Miss Danes. Callbacks will be posted in two days."

"Thank you," she said, her voice cracking from nerves and the stress of singing that song. Quietly she turned and left, letting out a small sigh of release. The immediate stress was over. Now a different type of tension would build up: the worry, the hoping, the waiting.

Callbacks were in two days. She wouldn't have to wait long.

The next several days were exhausting. Exams were only a week away, and Christine studied tirelessly for them, from morning until far into the night. But beneath her dedication and focus there was a knot of nerves perpetually churning in her stomach, reminding her every time she almost forgot that a musical was at stake, and that in the end she might not be good enough.

When callbacks were posted she nearly leapt into the air when she saw her name, and for the first time in months Christine felt a sense of relief from the weight of grief that accompanied her everywhere.

'_You see dad? Maybe I can do it, maybe I can make you proud,'_ she thought as she bent her head over a textbook, the knowledge of a callback still fresh in her mind. _'Maybe this will all work out.'_

The callbacks were tiring, long, and left Christine with the distinct impression that she had not done her best. She was nervous and shaky, and had difficulty sight reading the music they handed to her. Sight reading had never been one of her strong points, and she struggled through the song.

Still, maybe there was hope. The musical had a rather large cast, and any part at all would be welcome.

'_Still,'_ she thought several days later as she sleepily let her head drift closer to the open book on the kitchen table, _'Wouldn't it be wonderful to get the lead? It would make him so happy…and I would happy too, I think._'

Her cheek touched the page as she gave into exhaustion, and as she slept Christine heard the beautiful music telling her that everything was all right, that she only had to follow and believe and the world would right itself. She trusted it – how could anything so beautiful be wrong? – and even nodded slightly as she slept in affirmation.

The music was the answer. The music would protect her. As with the stories her father had told her when she was young, Christine's dreaming mind believed implicitly in what the music was telling her, even if her waking mind, with all of its boundaries and logic, did not.

The next day was her first exam, and she entered it with trepidation. Despite hours of studying her mind drifted, became consumed with worry over the play. She didn't know when the cast list would be posted, only that it was soon, and she had gone over a dozen times to check if it was up. She couldn't even focus as she sat in the huge lecture hall, a test with horribly boring analytical questions in front of her. She tried to force herself to think, but her mind felt wooden.

After she gathered her bags and handed the exam in, Christine left the building with a strange mixture of disappointment and apathy. She knew that she had done poorly despite her studying, but as she rushed to check the list she found that she just didn't care. She went through her business classes like a machine, studied out of necessity, worked without passion. And when she had the chance to do something she loved, even if it hurt to do it, Christine found it hard to remember why she had the other major in the first place.

As she entered the hallway she immediately spotted the small slip of paper pinned to the far wall, and the knot in her stomach grew until it filled her lungs and throat. The hallway seemed to magically stretch, and as she finally approached the end Christine squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath.

The paper was directly in front of her and carefully, tentatively, she cracked her eyes open to scan the list.

She looked first at the leads, named characters, and soloists. She was not there. She bit her bottom lip as her gaze drifted lower, to the thin rows of neatly typed names that signified the chorus. There, smudged in the middle, was her name.

Christine let out a sigh of relief, and then a smile broke over her face. She had done it. Not a lead, not important, but she had made it, and that was all that mattered.

Another list of names followed the chorus, and she eyed it curiously. It was the list of understudies. And there, right there in black ink was her name, her own name as understudy for the lead!

Christine staggered backward, overjoyed. This was more than she ever expected. She knew her voice was mediocre: fair, but weak, without the power that a lead role demanded. And to get understudy for the lead! It seemed too good to be true.

And, as she slumped against the wall and clapped her hand to her forehead with a little laugh, she had no way of knowing that it was.

The days before her last three finals slid by like drops of water against a windowpane. Always prone to strong emotions, her success with the musical buoyed her to shake off her apathy and work harder than she ever had before.

Christine tried to pack weeks of studying into three days: she read for long hours, barely slept or ate, memorized information until her body ached for relief. When she did sleep she would doze and then jerk awake, terrified that she had missed a test or forgotten important information. The crying fits returned, stronger than ever. She refused Meg's offers to go out. She worked, and fretted, until the night before the last final when Meg found her collapsed in their room, hyperventilating and shaking violently, in the midst of a panic attack.

"Oh, hell." Meg was almost more annoyed than worried. She found a small paper bag and crossed the workbook-strewn room to hold it up to Christine's face. "Breathe into this."

Christine gratefully grabbed the bag and stretched on her back as she breathed. She stared at the ceiling, trying to clear her thoughts. What had happened to bring it on? She remembered studying, not understanding question after question, feeling like a failure, starting to cry, wishing that for just a moment she would not have to feel so _alone…_

She realized that Meg was speaking. "Christine, you have to stop this, go to a councilor or something. You're killing yourself." There was a note of suppressed urgency in her voice, and not for the first time Christine saw how her irrational actions must affect her roommate.

Slowly she took the bag away from her mouth and looked at the dark haired girl. "Do you ever hear music while you sleep?" she asked. Meg was taken aback.

"What?" She seemed unsure of how to deal with this strange question. "I sleep with earplugs."

"No, I mean in your head, in your dreams?" Christine felt like she shouldn't be mentioning it, like it was a secret to be jealously guarded, but at the moment she just wanted someone else to understand.

"I…no," Meg said, flustered. "Why, do you? Are you okay? This is a pretty weird question to be asking somebody."

"I hear it," Christine said in a soft voice, turning her face to the ceiling. "Sometimes I think that it's the only thing that keeps me sane."

"Or it's proof of your insanity," Meg snapped brusquely, unnerved by this strange revelation. Christine smiled.

"Maybe." She turned her head to find Meg looking at her with a mixture of worry and fear, and felt suddenly ashamed of her admittance. Talking about the music made it seem more real, and she wasn't crazy, she knew it wasn't real.

But the song left at the grave…

She made an attempt to calm Meg's fears, though it did nothing for her own. "I'm just stressing out too much, you know how I get. I don't even know how I find my way to the door some mornings, let alone to class." This earned a small smile from Meg that encouraged Christine to keep talking. "And finals week is over tomorrow, and we have vacation. I'll have plenty of time to rest down south."

Meg sat back on her heels, more relaxed at the thought of break. "Yeah, it will be good to have some down time. Who are you visiting again? It's family, right?"

"My Auntie V," Christine said with a wistful smile. "She's my father's older sister. I haven't seen her in years, but we used to visit her every year when I was little…" She trailed off, lost to her thoughts.

Meg cleared her throat. "Well, at least finals are almost over, and getting away will do you some good."

"Yeah, it will be nice to be with family again."

"And when you get back, will you at least consider maybe seeing a councilor or something? You can't keep breaking down like this, Chris."

"I'll think about it," Christine promised, though she knew that she wouldn't. She had seen therapists for a year after her father's death and they hadn't done any good; in a way, they had almost made it worse, forcing her to drag up difficult feelings and memories. She preferred everything to stay safely buried, locked away where no one could find it until the day that she herself forgot it was there.

But soon she wouldn't have to think about councilors, about school, about pain and death. Soon there was vacation, relaxation in a nostalgic place with familiar people.

Dimly, the childlike, believing part of her mind wondered if the music would follow her to Louisiana, if she would still hear it while she slept. She knew, a moment later, that it would. The music would never leave her.

It would follow her anywhere, and for the moment she took comfort in that knowledge.

No matter where she was, there it would be.


	3. Vacation with Valerius

**Chapter Three: Vacation with Valerius**

"Look at this angel who has come to visit me!"

Christine smiled as she wrapped her arms around the frail older woman. "Auntie V, you shouldn't have come all the way here to pick me up, I could have caught a cab."

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, nearly dragging Christine to the wide glass doors and outside of the airport. "Look, I have the car right here."

Aunt V, Elizabeth Valerius, was Christine's father's sister, fifteen years his senior. At the age of 78 she looked like a woman who had been wild and strong in her day, her appearance a mixture of ancient glamour, frazzled nerves, and forgetfulness. She was small and wiry, with hair perpetually in curlers and large, once-beautiful rings on her fingers. Christine lowered her eyes against the bright sun and caught a glimpse of Aunt V's feet, clad in large fuzzy slippers, and the bottom of a pink dressing gown peeking out from under her coat.

The car was an ancient red Cadillac that looked like it could fit twenty people in the back; it was rusting, dented, and parked with the front half on the sidewalk, a yellow ticket tucked into the windshield wipers. Christine felt a stab of unease as she stowed her bags in the trunk.

"Auntie V, are you sure…" she began to ask. The older woman had already climbed into the car, ignoring the ticket.

"Get in, dear, get in." She motioned wildly as Christine reluctantly entered the passenger seat. "All buckled up? Well then, let's go!"

She turned the key in the ignition; the car coughed, lurched, and slammed forward, driving for a moment on the sidewalk and scattering pedestrians. Valerius spun the wheel and banked hard to the left, then hit the gas so fiercely Christine was thrown back against her seat.

Christine clutched the sides of her seat until her knuckles turned white as they screeched out of the parking lot and onto the highway. She glanced over nervously: Valerius had rolled the window down, her elbow in the open air as she leisurely smoked and drove one-handed.

"So tell me, dear," Valerius shouted over the rush of air. "How is life going for you now? Doing well in school?"

Christine tried to ignore the car swerving from side to side. "Yeah, I'm okay, how are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm fine, just fine." Valerius waved her cigarette in the air as if to prove a point. "Fit as a fiddle, darling!"

"But I heard…"

"Those doctors don't know what they're talking about!" She flicked her cigarette out the window but kept her hand and arm in the whipping wind. "I've never felt better in my life! I'm telling you, the quality of training in this country keeps on going down; you can't believe anything they say anymore!"

They screeched off the highway and for a few minutes there was silence as Christine held on to her seat and Valerius calmly lit another cigarette. Scenery flew by them, so different from the cold of Pennsylvania: this land was all green and wet and mild, though Christine still hugged a thin coat around her as if to ward off an impending chill. It wasn't until they were pulling into the driveway of the little house in the quiet seaside town that Valerius turned to her niece and asked, dragging on her cigarette, "Now tell me, how is your father doing?"

Christine stiffened and hugged her jacket closer. "He…Auntie V, he passed away three years ago. Don't you remember?"

Valerius gave her a blank look before smiling too brightly for the somber conversation. "Of course, I'm sorry, how silly of me to have forgotten. Now if you'll just come into the house…"

Christine slid out of the car, still shaken by the sudden mention of her father. Was V really that bad? A thread of worry began to knot itself in her stomach. Oh God, not V too, not her only family, her only link.

Well, there was one more link here, but she didn't think she'd get to see him. He was probably long gone by then, off doing something great in the world. He had probably forgotten all about her…

"Coming, dear?" Valerius was waiting expectantly by the door, and Christine blushed as she gathered her bags.

"Yeah." She paused. "Auntie V, do you still have a license?"

Valerius waved her cigarette-holding hand in the air as she opened the door with the other. "Oh, they took that silly old thing away years ago, as if that would stop me from driving. After all, I'm a perfectly good driver, aren't I?"

Christine decided to stay silent as she entered the dark interior of the house.

It was small and, though Valerius had no pets, smelled strongly of cats and mold. Heavy, dusty curtains were draped over the windows, and the chairs and sofa were covered with yellowing plastic. It was a house from Christine's childhood, a nostalgic house, but now it merely looked sad and old.

Valerius padded into the kitchen. "Why don't I get us something to drink and we'll talk. Make yourself comfortable."

Christine perched awkwardly on the plastic-covered sofa and stared at a vase of dusty plastic flowers. She remembered coming here when she was a child, when the windows were always thrown open and hung with screens to keep the summer bugs out, when V had a small yappy dog that ran around her heels, and when a small blond boy held her hand and watched as she made wreaths of flowers. She could see her father sitting in the rocking chair across from her, holding his violin and taking requests from the motley audience of sister, daughter, boy, and dog. In this house she could see more clearly than ever his rough and knotted hands, seemingly incapable of making music, grip the bow and sleek wood with gentleness. She could hear the echoes of his sad melodies, for even when he was lively there was a touch of sorrow as he forever mourned her mother and played only for her.

And here, now, she could hear the almost-forgotten sounds of yesterday: her father's voice raised in weary anger as he battled with his sister and Christine hid at the top of the stairs, six years old and scared and lonely after her mother's death.

"_Just take her for a few weeks, just a few weeks."_

"_And what are you going to do, Charles? Hide away and ignore the family you still have left?"_

"_I'll come back for her. I just need to get my feet on the ground, find a job."_

"_You _have_ a job…"_

"_I can't make music anymore, Betty. I won't. Not like I did."_

"_You're acting like you have nothing left to live for. I know you loved her Charles but you have your daughter! Live for the family you still have."_

"_I'll be back, Bett. You know I will."_

And he had come back several weeks later and taken her to Maine, but the knowledge of his almost-abandonment lingered in her memory like a bad dream. She firmly pushed it out of her thoughts.

'_Stop dwelling on the past,'_ she told herself. '_Or you'll lose your mind.'_

"Milk in your tea, sweetie?"

Christine jerked her head up, startled. "Oh…no thank you. Just lemon."

"I'm afraid I don't have any good ones; they're all rather fuzzy at the moment. Sugar?"

"Sure."

Valerius set the mugs on the table and tipped a huge amount of sugar into Christine's. "Enough?"

Christine made a face as she lifted the cup. "Yeah, that's fine Auntie V. Thanks."

Valerius settled herself on the couch. "Now, you _must_ tell me about your life. How's school? And your love life! Do you have a boyfriend?"

"I, ah…well, school is good. I don't know if you remember but I'm a business and a theater major."

"Business? What's a girl with a pretty face like yours doing going into business?"

"Because, I…well anyway," she said, ignoring the question. "I don't have a boyfriend right now. I haven't had one for about two years."

"Darling, they must be crazy for not snapping you up. I would think boys would be beating down your door!"

Christine felt her face grow red. What was she supposed to say? _'No, actually, no guy will have me, I think they all think I'm kind of a freak and as for this 'pretty face' you're talking about, if no one so much as flirts with you for two years you start to realize that the only people who think you're pretty are batty or just being polite.'_

She took a deep breath and cut off the angry rant in her head. "So how are you doing, Auntie V? Really?"

"I'm fine, dear, don't you worry. Having you here makes me feel like a young person again. Why, I remember you when you were just a little girl, how solemn you were! I think I only ever saw you truly happy when you were with your father or that little boy from down the street, now what was his name…"

"Raoul," Christine said softly. Valerius beamed.

"Of course, the little French boy. He was so sweet, always so polite."

"Do you have any idea what happened to him?"

"None at all," Valerius said breezily. "Only that he's not here anymore. Went up someplace north, I think, but that's the extent of my knowledge."

"Ah." Christine fell silent.

"Is everything okay, sweetie? You seem to have something on your mind."

Christine hesitated, unsure. When she was younger, V was one of the few people she could go to with her stories, her dreams, and never be mocked. Only V, her father, and Raoul had ever been trusted with her secrets; now only V was left but teetering on the edge of some vast hole. Christine glanced at her Aunt's eyes, but the vagueness had disappeared and they were as sharp and lively as she remembered them. She decided to try.

"Well, there is one thing," she murmured. "Lately, sometimes, at night when I sleep, I hear…"

"Yes?" V prompted.

"Music," Christine finished timidly. "Beautiful music. It's like something out of dad's stories, and I like to hope…that maybe it's him, watching over me. Like, I must be doing something right in my life if such beauty can come to me, as if it's a…sign, or something. I don't know." She gave a little laugh to make the conversation seem less serious and more sane, but V was listening intently to her every word.

"Well, of course it's your father," V said without hesitation, and Christine's head snapped up. "He always said he'd send the angel of music to you, didn't he?"

"Auntie V, those were just stories."

"All stories spring from truth," V continued staunchly. "It _is _a sign, darling, a sign that you are meant for great things. Your father knew you were."

'_Great things…'_ Christine thought wistfully. '_If only I could truly be meant for great things. But I don't have mama's talent, or dad's heart, I'm just _me_. Alone.'_ She blinked back tears. '_How I wish it could be true, angels and guardians, all of those childhood dreams. How I wish for great things!'_

"Dear?" V was looking at her and smiling. Christine smiled back.

"Sorry V, just thinking."

"A wise pastime," V said sagely and somewhat vaguely.

"Why don't I make us both a sandwich? And then we'll decorate the house for Christmas. Sound good?" Christine forced the worry into the back of her head and kept her voice cheerful.

V nodded. "That sounds wonderful. I think I went to the store yesterday."

Christine walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, then drew back sharply. The cold shelves stood vacant; in the door were several cleaned and completely empty jam jars, and shoved in the back, creating the horrible smell, were several molding pieces of what she assumed had once been food. Swallowing nervously, Christine moved to the cabinets: they were empty except for one lone box of cereal and a carton of macaroni and cheese, both of which had dust gathering. She felt sick. What had V been eating lately?

Tears welled in her eyes. Christine clutched the counter and willed herself not to cry. She scrunched her face up and was screaming inside of her head not to cry, to push it all away, when the doorbell rang.

She gasped slightly as the high sound jarred her thoughts. Dimly she heard the door open, and voices.

"Why hello, dear, and what can I do for you?"

"Mrs. Valerius, don't tell me that you've forgotten me? I haven't been gone that long, have I?" A man's voice laughed, warm and smooth, and Christine felt her breath catch. Carefully she made her way out the kitchen, and there, standing in the living room and looking windswept and bright, was Raoul.


	4. Christmas in the South

**Chapter Four: Christmas in the South**

"Little Lotte!" Raoul exclaimed, recognizing her in an instant. "I was hoping that you'd be here."

Christine just stood there, her mouth slightly agape. How many years had it been? Nine, ten? And here he was, a page out of the past, smiling that sweet smile at her with those blue, blue eyes and calling her by her childhood nickname.

"I…hi," she said stupidly, then dropped her eyes to the ground and blushed. "I mean, it's nice to see you. How have you been?"

"That's a pretty tall question to ask someone after nine years, Lotte," he said laughingly. "But overall, pretty good."

"That's good."

"And you?" he pressed, taking a step closer to her as V wandered into the kitchen muttering about pineapples. "I heard that your father passed away. I'm sorry I wasn't able to come to the funeral. And I'm…I'm sorry."

"It's alright," she mumbled, wanting to talk about anything else but this with him. "It was a small funeral, just, you know, family…"

He sensed the tension in the air and quickly changed the subject. "And how has school been?"

Christine eased her way onto the plastic covered couch and Raoul followed suit. "Fine, I guess. Good. I'm doing alright. I'm a business and theater major."

He smiled. "Theater I can see, but business? That doesn't seem right for you, Lotte, you always had your head too far up in the clouds."

She blushed again, then berated herself for acting so silly in front of an old friend. "Well, I…it's what my father wanted for me. In case theater didn't work out."

"Ah."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asked.

"What do you have?"

"…Tap water."

"Sure." He smiled at her, a little shyly. "That sounds great."

Sighing with slight relief, Christine made her way into the kitchen and searched for clean glasses, which she filled with lukewarm water from the tap. She felt so strange and awkward around Raoul. When they were kids they used to do everything together whenever she visited her aunt in the summertime: swim, fish, tag, wrestle. He had been so cute with his button nose, skinny legs and soft, vague French accent, but now he sat in the dilapidated living room, all grown up, handsome and, as he always was, obviously wealthy. And here she was: timid, nervous, dressed in jeans and a ratty sweatshirt and clutching warm tap water in her crazy aunt's faded old house.

Swallowing hard, she walked back into the living room and handed Raoul his glass. "It's warm," she apologized.

"Oh…well, I like it like that," he said, and gulped some down. She smiled slightly.

"So what are you doing now? Have you graduated?"

"Kind of…" He scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed. "I crammed my studies into three years so I could start helping my brother with the business. I thought it was the right thing to do, you know, 'be a man' and go out into the world to make money."

"And?"

"Well I'm doing it, but it's boring as hell." He laughed. "I hate it actually; it's all accounts and figures. I miss the freedom of college. I was insanely busy but the worst that would ever happen if I messed up would be a bad grade on an exam, you know?"

"It's still a lot of pressure," she said quietly.

"But hey, this is what I really wanted to talk to you about," Raoul said, placing his half-full glass on the table and leaning forward. "My brother and I are moving into new headquarters for a couple of months, maybe more. We're opening a new office—well, I should say Philippe is and I'm following him—but the point is that it's Philadelphia. That's where you go to school, isn't it?"

Christine nodded, surprised.

"Well, then, we should get together after Christmas vacation," he said, looking at her fondly. "If you want to."

"Sure, that would be great."

"And maybe we could do lunch or something before then. I have two more weeks of 'quality family time' in Louisiana left; you'd be saving me by getting me out of the house. So what do you think? Lunch? Sometime?"

Christine felt herself nodding, but her brain felt detached from her body. "Sure, I would love to."

Raoul beamed.

He left a few minutes later, all too soon for Christine, who felt lighthearted and young for the first time in months. As he walked away she watched him from the window, a slight smile on her face, before V called her into the kitchen and she was pulled back into the starkness of reality.

The first thing she did was go to the store. Christine piled her cart high with everything she could possibly imagine V to want, including toiletries, and paid out of her own pocket.

Then she set to cleaning the house. She threw open the windows and scrubbed the cabinets and floor, feeling like Cinderella as she washed and hummed under her breath. Then, when the house was livable and all the food was stacked neatly its proper places, she pulled open a decrepit cardboard box of Christmas decorations and filled the house with them, stringing lights around the windows and standing on tiptoe to hang mistletoe.

"What a beautiful job you've done!" V exclaimed as she shuffled into the kitchen to inspect Christine's handiwork. "Why, I don't even recognize the place!"

Christine wiped her forehead and smiled. "This house needed a little cheer, didn't it, V?"

"Oh yes."

Christine brushed her hands on the front of her jeans and took a deep breath. "V, I've been thinking…I think that you need to go see a doctor. I'm worried about you. I think that you need some medication, or something."

"Well, I did have medication."

Christine started. "What? What do you mean?"

"Here, look." V stood on tiptoe to grab something small off of the top of the refrigerator. "This was my last one."

Christine took the empty container and studied the label. The long title meant nothing to her, but the date on it was relatively recent. She glanced up.

"What do you mean, 'your last one'? What happened?"

"I'm not sure, but I think that they told me that my insurance wouldn't cover it anymore, and I just don't have enough money to pay for it myself."

Christine felt her skin grow cold. "And you just stopped taking it?"

"Well, I had none left. I wish I did though." She stared at the bottle, her brows knit thoughtfully together. "I felt so much better when I did."

Later that day, Christine called the doctor whose name she found on V's list of important numbers. The secretary put her on hold, and strains of soft classical music wafted tinnily out of the phone. She bit her lip as she waited, trying to decide what to do. How could she fix this? She didn't have enough money to pay for the medication herself, but V needed it and Christine couldn't just go back up to Pennsylvania and leave her here alone.

She jerked out of her reverie as the doctor picked up. "Hello, this is Doctor Stanford. This is Christine Danes? Elizabeth Valerius' niece?"

"Yes." Christine hated that her voice was shaking. "I'm worried about her. I heard that she's not receiving medication anymore?"

"Yes, under the revised terms of her insurance the medication was no longer covered. We were trying to help her find a new plan."

Christine wrinkled her brow in confusion. "What do you mean, 'we _were_ trying to find a new plan'? Are you not anymore?"

There was a pause. "I'm sorry; I thought you were aware of the situation. Miss Danes, everything involving your aunt, including doctor's visits, medication, and if need be, a nursing home, has been paid for, just a few days ago."

"Excuse me? What do you mean? Who's paying for it?"

"It's an anonymous donation."

"_Anonymous?_ Do you know how much money all of this will cost? How could someone just decide to pay for her? How would someone even know what she needs, what is wrong with her? I don't understand."

"I don't have those answers, Miss Danes. All I can tell you is that you don't have to worry about your aunt anymore."

"Thank you. Do you have any information at all about this benefactor?"

"No, I'm sorry."

"Well, okay. Thanks again. Goodbye."

Slowly she hung up the phone, feeling numb. The strange events of the past few months began to weigh on her, filling the pit of her stomach with an unnamable emotion. Who was paying for this? Why would someone want to help? How did they even know about V? The questions spun around and around in her head.

"Is everything alright, dear?"

Christine glanced up at her Aunt, whose smiling eyes were vague, and let out a sigh. "Everything's okay, V. From now on, I think everything's going to be okay."

The next days went by peacefully and quickly. The only disappointment was the day Raoul called to say that he couldn't see her until after the holidays as his brother was keeping him swamped with work despite the Christmas season. But he insisted on seeing her right after Christmas, and sounded so genuine that she smiled and felt only a little sad.

Christmas day dawned cloudy and still, and as Christine and a healthier, medicated Valerius exchanged their few presents Christine felt calm and happy. She had one present not from V tucked under the tree, wrapped brightly with loops and swirls, from Raoul: a shining bracelet that glittered when the light hit it.

She blushed as she placed it on her wrist and admired it in the dim light. She didn't even want to think about what it cost, or what it implied from a man she hadn't seen for nine years. She just wanted to feel special and happy on Christmas and enjoy her gift.

V called out to her. "I think I see one more gift there, towards the back. We can't forget something."

Christine smiled as she got on her hands and knees to retrieve the darkly wrapped package. "Another? V, you shouldn't have."

"I didn't. That's not from me. Actually I don't know how it got there. I must have put it in with the others and forgotten about it."

Christine glanced up at V and then back down at the gift, the tiny, winding snake of unease moving painfully in her stomach. "If it's not from you, then who is it from?"

"Well, we won't know until you open it."

Christine studied the plain wrapping silently. On the bottom of the thin package her name was neatly typed. Carefully she tugged at the paper.

Inside was a manila envelope, and when she opened it sheets of paper slid into her lap.

'_More music!'_

It was another song, just as hauntingly beautiful as the first, and she knew instinctively that it was composed by the same person. She mentally played the first few bars: it was a minor chord, soft and devastatingly sad, but God, so heartbreakingly beautiful. Slowly Christine gathered the sheets and placed them on the floor before returning to inspect the envelope.

As she did one more piece of paper fell out, small and familiar with its knotted, handmade texture. She bit her lip, feeling her stomach tighten, and saw that her hand was shaking as she read the words in that same clumsy red handwriting.

'**Since you enjoyed the last one so much.'**

Christine let the paper fall from her hand as she clasped her palms to her mouth to stifle a gasp, her suspicions confirmed and her mind bewildered.

And the thread of nervousness grew.


	5. January Freezes

**Chapter Five: January Freezes**

"Alright everybody, listen up. We're going to start blocking scene one today and I don't want to have to do this twice. Everyone have a pencil? Okay, Miss Roberts, we're starting with your entrance."

Christine sighed and ruffled through her script. She didn't have an entrance until scene three, with the rest of the chorus. She glanced around at the motley group of students who were napping, talking in soft voices, or staring ahead dully. The first rehearsals were always the longest, stretching out for hours as the directors went line by line and blocked.

She was tempted to pull out the homework that filled her bag and weighed heavily on her thoughts, but Christine knew that as the understudy she had to pay attention. She filled her script with margin notes and followed the scenes closely, but as the hours dragged on the margins became filled with doodles.

"Okay everyone, it's time to head out." The director's voice broke through Christine's thoughts and she flushed as she realized her inattention. She felt so tired after hours of just sitting there; they hadn't even gotten to act three yet and all of the other minor roles were gathered into groups and muttering among themselves. Christine didn't care enough to join in; she just wanted to go home, study, and maybe fall into bed before midnight.

And tomorrow was that date…

Yawning, she stuffed the script into her bag and swung it around her shoulder. The directors stood a few yards away, talking quietly, and every once in a while she could have sworn they glanced back at her. She decided that now was the time to ask.

"Um, excuse me." Christine tapped Mr. Mayhew on the shoulder and he swung around, his small eyes widening in surprise.

"Yes, Danes?" It was Mr. Richkin who answered, his thin, boney face twisted as if swallowing something sour.

Christine attempted a smile. "I just wanted to know if we have rehearsal during Spring Break." They stared at her as she cleared her throat nervously and began to babble. "It's just the schedule isn't out for March yet, and I have plans to go home, well, where I used to live…to Maine, for break, and I wanted to know if it would conflict with rehearsal."

Mr. Mayhew spoke up. "Actually, we were going to…"

"It's not decided yet," Mr. Richkin interrupted. "But it's quite possible that we won't have rehearsal that….that conflicts with _your_ schedule."

She frowned slightly. Why did it seem that what Mayhew was going to say was completely different? And was it her imagination, or did Richkin stress the word 'your', like it was for her alone?

Christine shook her head as she thanked them and walked away. She really was paranoid lately, especially after the odd happenings in the past few months. But to imagine that even the directors were making exceptions just for her…that was just conceited.

'_The world doesn't revolve around me,'_ she thought wryly as she walked through the darkness back to her apartment. Once there she ignored the glaring security camera and took the elevator to the top floor, where she unlocked her door and threw the keys and her bag on the table.

"Meg?" she called out, but no one was there. Christine kicked off her shoes and saw that the red light of the answering machine was blinking.

"Hey, Little Lotte, it's me." Raoul's recorded voice sounded out of the small machine as she flicked it on. "Listen, I know that we have a date set for tomorrow, and that you're not going to get back tonight until late, but I would really like to see you. Things are…well, they're kind of bad right now and if I could just talk to you I think I'd feel better. Can you call me when you get this?"

The machine beeped as the message ended but Christine continued to stare at it, her eyebrows knotted. Raoul sounded so sad and desperate, like he was bravely trying to muster cheerfulness but failing. What could have happened?

Despite her worry a small bubble of happiness rose in her chest. Raoul was upset and he needed to see _her._ _She _would make him feel better. Did he really like her that much? Smiling to herself and forgetting her fatigue, Christine picked up the phone and dialed.

An hour later she sat in a small diner close to her apartment, sipping tea and staring into Raoul's tired face. He looked like he hadn't slept in days: dark blond stubble dotted his chin, bags hung under his normally bright eyes, and the hand that held his coffee shook ever so slightly.

"What happened?" Christine asked softly.

Raoul reached over the table and laid his hand on hers. "I'm sorry I worried you," he said. "I'm just very stressed and exhausted and I needed to see a friendly face. _Your _face."

She blushed as he continued. "I just…I've…I don't know where to begin. We've lost everything. Everything."

Christine kept her voice steady and repeated her question. "What happened?"

Raoul stared out of the window and into the night. "Philippe called me into his office a few days ago and told me that we…lost Chagny Incorporated. We lost the company."

"What do you mean, 'lost it'?" Christine asked. "Doesn't your family own it?"

"That's what I thought, and what I asked him. He looked me straight in the eye and told me that it was all a lie, that my family had never owned Chagny Inc."

Christine was appropriately shocked and confused. "Excuse me? How can that be? I mean, 'Chagny' is right in the name."

"I know, right?" Raoul laughed a laugh that sounded like a cry. "Philippe said that he was a…front man of sorts. That someone else - someone who he's never even met! – bought the company years ago from our parents in secret and now owns everything; Philippe just continues to run it. He also gets most of the money as long as everyone believes that it's still ours, but the executive decisions are often made by this other man, who actually controls everything. It's like my family name is a sham, like we're all…puppets!"

He slammed his hand on the table. "And now it's gone, just like that. This person— and I don't even know his name or anything because Philippe isn't talking— just up and decided that he didn't want or need us anymore and took the company, all of it, and basically threw us out on the street. My job is gone, my future is gone. I have nothing. What could we possibly have done to bring this on? Why would this person have done this to us so suddenly, so brutally?"

Christine shook her head, not having an answer. She leaned forward and boldly entwined her fingers with his. "I'm so sorry, Raoul, but can't you find a way out of this? Can't you…fight it in court in something? Get something back?"

Raoul laughed bitterly. "How? This man legally owns everything; he can do whatever he wants with it. Besides, from what my Philippe insinuated I think he practically owns the courts, too."

She raised her eyebrows at him but he only shrugged. "I'm telling you what I know, Lotte, which isn't much."

Christine tightened her fingers around his hand. "God, I'm so sorry. I know that I can't do much, but is there anything that I can do to help?"

"Just you being here helps me, Lotte." Raoul smiled wearily.

She blushed. "So what are you going to do now?"

His smile fell. "I'm not sure. I don't know what I _can_ do. I have the degree, I just never looked outside the realm of my family's company…or what I thought was my family's company. I guess I'll have to go on interviews like everyone else."

"You'll do fine," Christine said, trying to sound soothing. "I know you will. You're smart and worldly; you'll find other work. And I'll be here to cheer you on."

Raoul smiled gratefully, and she felt her heart rise into her throat.

Later, as the night eased slowly into morning and she knew she wasn't going to sleep for very long, Christine entered her apartment and once again kicked off her shoes. Meg still wasn't there, but she found a message on the machine with Meg's voice chirping that she was crashing with some friends.

Christine fell into bed, exhausted. _'What a night,' _she thought dazedly. _'Can my life get any stranger? But Raoul likes me, he really does! How long has it been since I've felt loved…'_

She drifted into sleep, and the music started.

But this time it wasn't soothing. It was harsh, angry, the violin screaming out notes. Christine felt trapped in her dreams; the darkness of sleep was smothering her, she was in heavy water and as she tried to claw her way out she felt weighted and unable to open her eyes.

'_Wake up!' _her mind screamed at her as she fought her way out of the darkness. _'Wake up, please wake up!'_

But she couldn't move, drifting between reality and dreams as if in a drugged stupor. And then the voice, which normally sang to her, spoke for the first time.

"_You weak child," _it hissed in her ear. "_Would you throw everything away for that boy? He has nothing. He is nothing and now he has nothing. He can give you _nothing. _He does not deserve your smiles. You hear music that is blessed by the gods. Would you give that up for him? Could you live life alone, never hearing it again?"_

She thrashed her head, trying to speak. '_No!' _her mind pleaded. '_Don't leave me alone! I can't be alone anymore!'_

"_Such beauty is a rare and delicate thing," _the voice whispered, and in her dream state Christine felt a cold hand on her forehead. _"I give you beauty beyond all imagining, peace when the world is driving you mad. And you smile for a boy who is too weak to find his own beauty, his own way in the world? He clings to you not out of love, but because he is lost. You are a comfort to his ego. Did you think you were anything else to him? He knows nothing of love!"_

Christine felt tears come to her eyes. _'I know!' _she thought desperately. _'How could anybody love me?'_

As if hearing her thoughts, the voice became gentler. _"There is love for you in this world, child. Just not him. Never him. But you are loved. Remember that. Trust in the music and forget the boy. He is nothing. You…you are everything."_

She could feel the presence retreating from her, and tried urgently to wake up, to stretch out her hand. _'Wait!' _she called mentally. _'Don't go!'_

"_I won't be far," _it whispered. "_I'll never be far."_


	6. February Panics

**Chapter Six: February Panics**

There was something wrong with the directors.

Christine could see their eyes darting to her as they spoke in hushed voices, neglecting their job and leaving the cast to rehearse alone. They had been secretive these past few weeks, nervous, jumping at whoever spoke to them and glaring almost fearfully at Christine whenever they caught her eye.

She watched them retreat into their office and returned her attention to the script. It was only February and already rehearsals seemed to have been dragging on for years. Her life was the same weary cycle of work and pain, unfulfilled dreams. Just last week the doctor had told her that Valerius would soon be admitted to a nursing home. Raoul had finally found a job but was still horribly depressed over his misfortunes; it seemed that many companies had turned him down for no apparent reason. He called Christine and asked her out several times but she always felt herself refusing for reasons she couldn't quite name. It just seemed wrong somehow, like the memory of a dark dream that lingered on the edge of her unconscious, urging her to stay away from him.

So she was once again alone, but at least she was in the musical, and at least she still had her dream music.

Christine glanced up and noticed that the rest of the cast had ceased to rehearse and was divided into small noisy groups. She yawned, suddenly thirsty, and as she rose from her chair Christine remembered a question about scene five that she had been meaning to ask Mr. Richkin. She walked tiredly to their office. They always seemed too busy to speak with her during rehearsals, but maybe now she could get their attention.

She reached the old wooden door and raised her hand to knock, but the sound of her name stopped her in her tracks.

"Well, what are we going to do about Danes, then?" Mr. Mayhew's voice came out muffled and angry, and Christine leaned toward the door, curious.

"What can we do? We know how much power this man has. I don't really think that we have a choice in the matter." Mr. Richkin sounded tired.

"But damn it, we can't keep going on like this. Putting the girl in the musical was one thing, even letting her be an understudy, but I'll be damned to hell if we're going to take off the best singer this school has to offer and replace her with that weak-voiced Danes, he can threaten all he wants!"

"You know that they're not threats." Richkin's voice was so weary. "You know that he has the power to do exactly what he says he will do. We'll be ruined if we don't put Danes in the lead."

"And we'll be ruined if we do!" Mayhew spat. "I'm tired of taking orders from some psychopath! It's not _fair_, John."

"Of course it's not, and keep your voice down," Richkin hissed. "You know that he has eyes everywhere. And the problem with Miss Danes…"

"Do you think she knows?" Mayhew whispered. "Do you think she knows anything?"

"She's got to suspect something, but no, I think that she's in the dark with this." Richkin sighed. "I almost feel sorry for her."

Christine backed away from the door with her hands to her mouth. What was going on? What did they mean? Did someone tell them to put her in the musical? Who? Was the same someone telling them to put her in the lead? That was ridiculous, she didn't have the vocal strength for the lead and she knew it. But what did they mean? What if she wasn't good enough to be onstage, what if it was all this _man_, this strange figure who gave orders dealing with her? Who could it be?

And as her mind flashed to the sheets of music and the strange occurrences of the past months she felt fear grip her stomach, and she started running.

Her feet pounded on the tile as she ran up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, heading for the one person she knew would give her a straight answer.

Christine flew through the brightly polished door to find him sitting at his desk, a mildly confused look on his face. He opened his mouth to speak but she slammed her hands on the desk and stared at him wildly.

"Did someone order you to put me in the musical?"

Mr. Reyes, the short, balding head of the theater department, frowned at her. "What?"

"Did they? _Did they?_ Did someone tell you to cast me in the musical? Did someone tell you to give me the lead? _Is someone threatening you and what does it have to do with me?"_

Reyes stared at her as if he had never seen her before. "Oh dear," he whispered. "How did you hear about this?"

"It's true then?" she gasped out. "Please, don't lie to me. Is it true?"

"Yes," he said softly, sadly. "I'm afraid that it is."

Christine gripped the desk to keep herself from falling. "What is going on?" she whispered.

In response Reyes opened his bottommost drawer, pulled out a handful of papers, and handed them to her.

Christine took them shakily and started as she felt the familiar knotted texture, but her heart didn't drop into her stomach until she saw the clumsy red handwriting.

'_It's the same person! Oh God!'_

She glanced at the papers, the most recent first, then the one after that, and the one after that, going back for months, and realized horribly that almost all of them were about her.

'**I would like to correct you on the idea of Miss Holleywell as the lead role, Miss Christine Danes seems far better suited…'**

'**I am of the mind that rehearsals should not be held during Spring Break but perhaps should be extended longer after…'**

'**Do I need to remind you of my salary? As rightful owner of this university I will not be denied the extra sum that I ask for…'**

'**I need to revise your choice of casting Miss Clark as the understudy of Miss Holleywell…'**

'**I believe that it would be in your best interests to add Miss Danes to the cast list as she rightfully deserves to be…'**

Christine looked up, unable to read any more. "What are these?" she asked.

Mr. Reyes sighed heavily. "They're my orders," he said. "And in a way, yours."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, this man obviously wants you to perform and I believe it would be unwise to go against those wishes."

"'This man?' But…but he says in this note that he owns the university! Is this true? How can you not know who he is?"

Reyes sagged his shoulders, looking older than his years. "We just don't. It's true that he owns the university – though he skims extra money off the top with a form of blackmail he calls 'salary'— but he's remained completely anonymous. He works entirely out of random notes and pseudonyms. We can't track him, can't find out anything about him, and no one will help us look. It's like he owns everything, has everyone scared."

She swallowed and tried to find her voice. "And what does this have to do with me?"

Reyes pulled out a spotted handkerchief and mopped his round face with it. "I'm not sure. All I know is that he seems to have a particular interest in you and your voice." He suddenly sat up straight. "Has anything unusual happened to you lately? Anything that could relate to this?"

Christine bit her lip and stared at the ground. What was she supposed to tell him about? Music that appeared out of nowhere, random events, dreaming of strange and lovely things? None of it made sense. How could it possibly help?

"No," she muttered. "No, nothing much. But I can't do this anymore, not now that I know….I'm sorry, I…..have to stop. I'm leaving the musical. I'm sorry. But…keep me informed, will you?"

Reyes stared at her with his mouth partly open as if about to speak but she flushed and edged toward the door, then ran out of the office.

Christine flew down the steps and out of the building, breathing sharply. What was going on? Who was this shadow man? Why was he haunting her? It didn't make any sense!

"God DAMNIT!" She stopped, hands on her knees, and screamed. In the few minutes since she had overheard that conversation, everything Christine believed in had shattered around her. She _wasn't _good enough to be cast, she _wasn't _doing the right things with her life. It was all some strange person. Nothing was her.

"Nothing is ever me," she whispered. "Never."

She stumbled and ran to her apartment, took the stairs instead of the elevator, locked the door, and collapsed in a corner of her room, her head between her knees.

Meg found her there an hour later and paused in the doorway, fearing another panic attack. But when Christine looked up at her with a lost, tear-streaked face, Meg dropped her bag and went to her friend's side.

"Chris? Chris, what happened?"

"It's not me, Meg," Christine whimpered. "I'm not good enough, I never will be, and he, he…" She gulped back another sob. She felt as if she was breaking on the inside, like glass under the weight of a truck, shattering into dust and dirt.

"Calm down, honey." Meg snapped into her 'mother' role, straightening her shoulders and sounding commanding yet gentle. "What's going on?"

"I quit the play," Christine muttered.

Meg widened her eyes. "What? Why?"

"I found out…something horrible." Christine lifted her wet, red face to her friend's, trying to coherently explain the strange events of the afternoon. "I overheard the directors talking….and then I found out…"

"Yes?"

"There's some….man, I don't know who, the owner of the university, I guess…it's all so confusing…..but he….he's been telling the theater department what to do. He _told_ them to cast me…practically threatened them. I don't know why, but it's all _him_, not me. I wasn't good enough. It's so strange, almost….frightening."

Meg blinked as she digested the information. "Why would this person ask for _you_ to be cast?"

Christine let out a choked sob. "How should I know? I have no idea!"

"So what are you going to do now?" Meg asked tentatively.

Christine shook her head. "I don't know. I quit the play. I can't be there anymore knowing…knowing this. And I'm going to Maine next week for Spring Break to see my old friends, my old town….so I'll get away. I just need to take things one step at a time or I'll go mad. I feel like everything is so _wrong._"

Suddenly Christine paused, and her breath caught in her throat as she stared at a pile of papers by Meg's side. "What's that?" she asked.

Meg glanced down. "Oh, just the mail. I picked it up earlier. What's the matter?"

Christine had gone pale and was reaching toward the pile, pulling at the corner of a just-visible folded slip of paper with a strange, knotted texture.

She swallowed painfully and unfolded it. The clumsy handwriting only said two words, but she felt like someone had punched her in the stomach.

'**Don't quit**_**.'**_

"It's about the musical," Christine whispered. "But how…so soon…"

She drew her brows together in sudden anger as her flood of emotions reached its peak. How _dare _some strange person interfere in her life! How _dare _they make her feel like this, frighten her, unnerve her? It was _unfair._ It was _wrong._

"No," she whispered angrily. "Goddamnit, NO."

And Christine crumpled the note and tossed it in the garbage.


	7. March Thaws

**Chapter Seven: March Thaws**

"Oh my God!"

Claudia Jammes' mouth hung open in shock as the fork slid from her fingers to clatter noisily on the table. Christine almost smiled at her old high school friend but didn't have the will to. Instead she nodded.

"It's a crazy story, isn't it?"

"Crazy isn't the half of it!" Claudia scooped up the fallen fork and waved it around her head to emphasize her point. "It's incredible! In a bad, bad way of course. But you're sure you did the right thing, dropping out of the play?"

"What else could I have done?" Christine sounded defeated. "How could I continue with something that I knew was a lie?"

"I know, but… who knows, maybe this _person_ saw something in you that the directors didn't. I mean, I always knew you had a beautiful voice. You sang so wonderfully before…"

Claudia trailed off, twirling a strand of strawberry blonde hair around her finger. She had been one of the few people to attend Christine's father's funeral and knew how hard the death had affected Christine. Claudia had know Mr. Danes since she was an infant; she and Christine grew up together, and they had been so close as children that people often mistook them for sisters. Claudia even looked like Christine, with wide blue eyes and light hair, though Claudia's face was longer and thinner and more prone to laughter.

Christine smiled at her friend to reassure her that everything was okay. And, at the moment, it was. The two childhood friends were seated across from each other at their old high school haunt, the ancient diner in the center of town. Christine was sipping tea and watching, amused, as Claudia speared pieces of cake, popped them into her mouth, and kept talking, waving her fork around her head exaggeratedly.

Christine felt suddenly and deeply indebted to her friend. She had needed to get away from Philadelphia. This had been Claudia's birthday present to Christine last October: a ticket to Maine to spend Spring Break together. Claudia's father was a business tycoon, and presents like plane tickets were a typical gift.

"So, what do you think?"

Christine snapped herself out of her reverie. "What?"

Claudia rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue like a child. "You weren't listening, you goose. I _said_ why don't we go dancing? Forget all about your troubles with a couple drinks and some music!" She beamed, and Christine knew that Claudia was trying her hardest to cheer her up.

Part of Christine was tempted to agree, to let Claudia drag her from club to club, to get stumblingly drunk and just for a moment _forget._ But she couldn't bring herself to try.

"I'm sorry," she said, really meaning it. "But I can't. I think I'm gonna just go back to your house and get some sleep. Can I borrow the keys?"

Claudia sighed and fished the small metal pieces out of her pocket. "If that's what you really want," she grumbled. "I guess I didn't really expect anything different from you. Here." She tossed the keys to Christine as they stood and shrugged on their coats. "I'll only be a few hours, I just need to swing by the bar and see my man."

Christine smiled wearily. "I'll have to meet him sometime," she said.

Claudia nodded. "Soon. I'll need your 'best friend stamp of approval.'"

Christine almost laughed. "Will do. I'll see you later, CJ."

"You're going to be okay walking back alone?"

"It's only three blocks. I'm fine, go see your 'man.'"

They walked out the door together and as Christine paused to breathe in the cold night air Claudia waved and disappeared around the corner.

Christine stared at the sky and its glow of perfect stars. She could see the stars so clearly here, in this small childhood town. The air and the smells felt like home, and the stars looked like small wishes, small pieces of heaven watching her. She stood there for a long time, head tilted up at the clear black sky, before stuffing her hands into her pockets and turning to walk away.

She was just passing the next building when she heard it.

A violin.

The sound immediately jolted her back to the graveyard all those months ago. Christine knew instinctively that it was the same player, but while the beauty still stunned and awed her, she now felt a sliver of fear lodge in her throat.

'_That player must be the author of the notes,'_ she thought, trying to keep her head clear, to not get dragged under the spell of the intoxicating music. _'That player is the cause of all my fear and stress, the person behind everything!'_

She tried to muster up anger but alone in the cold and the night the music wrapped around her like a blanket, and the only emotion she could force was fear.

Fear and, as the sound reached a crescendo that filled Christine's head and made her heart feel like it would burst, an odd, unnerving joy.

The music stopped, and the elation faded, but the fear stayed.

Then he spoke and the joy rose again almost painfully, like a song stuck in her throat.

It was so _beautiful!_

"I did not expect you to be the quitting type, Miss Danes. I thought that you were more dedicated than that."

The perfect glory of his voice clouded Christine's thoughts, and it took her a moment to sort out what he had just said. When she did she felt rather stung, as if she had failed a trusted mentor.

Suddenly another thought hit her. He knew about her quitting: he _was_ the man behind it all.

"You!" she gasped to thin air, to the invisible voice. "You're the one who was sending the notes, threatening everyone! You're the one who wrote the music, who played in the graveyard that day!"

"I am."

Christine spun around, trying to pinpoint his location, but the voice seemed to come from everywhere. "Who are you? What do you want? _Where _are you?" she asked, tension gripping her chest. Unconsciously she had begun to breathe faster, shallower, a panic attack rising silently to her brain.

"I am everywhere. I thought you would have figured that out by now, child." The voice managed to be soothing, mocking, and terrifying all at once. "And as for what I want….right now, all I want is for you to not quit your dream. I cannot let such talent be wasted."

Christine gave a sharp, scornful laugh that came out like a cry. "Talent?" she asked harshly into the night air. "The only reason I even got in the damn thing was because you ordered them to put me in. It wasn't me."

The voice was silent for a moment. "They did not wish to cast you because of your withdrawn, unavailable attitude, and the fact that at current your voice sounds rather detestable."

She opened her mouth angrily, but the voice continued.

"You are poorly trained and weak of spirit after your father's death. It has sapped your voice of beauty but the talent is still there, hiding, untapped. I want you to be a part of that production and sing because you need to remember your love of song before your vocal problems can be fixed. This little musical is just your first step."

Christine's mouth still hung open as she groped for words. "My first step?"

She could almost sense his smile. "Another day, perhaps."

She felt him drifting away from her and felt an irrational need to not let this strange experience end. "Wait," she called softly.

"Don't quit, songbird. One day you will amaze the world." The all-over voice was getting softer.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"Another day," the wind breathed, and he was gone.

Christine blinked. The spell broke and she bolted, feet slamming against the pavement, a dark blur against the night.


	8. April Blurs and Fades

**AN: Just a quick note to let you know that the two dastardly and dashing characters who appear at the end of this chapter belong to me. They are actually two of the main characters in the book I hope to eventually publish, and I love them so much I couldn´t resist dropping them into this story.**

**Enjoy, and as always, thank you so much for the wonderful reviews. They make me ridiculously happy,and I appreciate each and every one.**

**Love, Maat**

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**Chapter Eight: April Blurs and Fades**

'_Just remember to breathe.'_

Christine stood backstage and clenched her sweaty hands together, forcing herself to take deep, long breaths. '_Don't hyperventilate, don't worry…what's wrong with me? I've never been this nervous before a show before!'_

She knew, in her heart, that it wasn't about the show.

When Christine had returned to Philadelphia after Spring Break the fearful directors pleaded with her to rejoin the production. She wearily accepted, on the condition that she resume her chorus role, though when they anxiously pressed a small solo on her she didn't refuse. Christine didn't understand what was going on, she didn't want to, but she didn't want to be afraid anymore. She wouldn't let anyone dictate her life.

'_I'm in this musical because I want to be, not because of anyone else,' _she told herself. _'I can't live my life in fear. I will live my life.'_

A shadow twitched somewhere in the hot darkness of the backstage and Christine jumped. She normally wasn't afraid of the dark but now she never quite felt safe. She knew he was out there somewhere, this mysterious person who invaded her dreams and tried to control her life, and she didn't know what he was capable of.

A sour note on the stage made Christine's head jerk up sharply, and she realized that she was on in a few lines.

'_Here goes,' _she thought, taking a deep breath and steeling herself to walk under the harsh stage lights. _'Watch over me, Dad. Protect me in this…and everything.'_

Christine knew the moment she stepped in front of the silent audience that he was there. A twinge, something ghostly that rose the hairs on the back of her neck warned her that someone was watching, someone outside of the dark sea of faces in front of her.

"I saw someone walking…" She started her small solo, sounding stronger than she felt, buoyed by her anger and fear. "And maybe it was you…"

When Christine finished she gracefully stepped back as the chorus rose up to join their voices with hers. She even smiled; the hardest part was over and she could stop shaking.

The final performances consumed Christine's life. She had two per day all week, and studying was pushed to the side, only concentrated on during late nights and early mornings. Finals loomed ahead, only two weeks after the end of the production, and the mere thought of them frightened her more than a hundred staring, shadowed eyes.

When the show closed she felt a bitter combination of relief and regret. No more staring eyes, no more walking onto that stage and feeling _wrong_, no more constant paranoia. But it was back to her normal life, her sad, boring, plain normal life, and she hated that.

'_Double-edged sword,'_ Christine thought bitterly the night after the final performance as she cracked one huge book open and sat at the kitchen table, poised with a yellow highlighter. '_The story of my life.'_

She tapped the highlighter on the edge of her book and pondered the last few months. _'I still don't know what any of this means. Who is this person? Maybe he's harmless, I mean he hasn't done anything except try to help me…and scare me half to death in the process. The idea of a stalker is so frightening, like any minute some guy is going to duct tape my mouth shut and throw me in the back of a van, or creep up on me in the shower, or something equally awful. But it's been months, and nothing bad has happened. I hope that maybe it will just go away in time. At least after finals I'll have the whole summer to relax.'_

Christine's university let out earlier than most; finals week was the last week in April and allowed the students an early jump on summer jobs. She was going to stay in her small, sad little apartment for the summer to work full time at the same diner she had worked in for the past two years. Meg was spending the summer at her mother's house, but would continue to pay half the rent for the apartment, as she had a habit of popping in unexpectedly with boys or plans for a wild party. Most of the time, Christine would be alone.

'_Always alone.'_

Time sped up, as it has a habit of doing when one has too little time to study and no real desire for school to let out. Before she could blink it was finals week, and she was once again woken up by Meg in the library.

"Hey!" The small girl shook Christine hard. "Come _on_, you prat, it's time to go! The library is closing!"

Christine sat up and awkwardly wiped drool from the corner of her mouth. "Oh God, Meg, I'm so sorry for making you search for me again."

"This wouldn't happen if you checked books out like a normal person instead of walling yourself away in this hole!" Meg was fuming that night, her cheeks flushed with righteous anger. "I'm afraid to leave you alone all summer!"

Christine shook her head as she gathered her things. "I'm fine, Meg, I promise, it's just that my most important final – and the last one, thank God—is tomorrow and I can't, _can't_ fail. My whole GPA rides on it. I'm going…"

"Crazy?" Meg snapped, and Christine blushed.

"Yeah," she whispered. "Yeah, a little crazy."

"Well, good luck on your test tomorrow." Meg sighed grumpily. "We're all stressed."

The next morning, with only a few hours of sleep in her, Christine plodded through the brightly green campus and took her seat in the lecture hall. She sat, scribbled, pondered, wrote, erased, and handed in her last final of the year with that forever double-edged bitter relief and trepidation.

"I'm officially a senior now," she muttered to herself as she rode the elevator back to her room and collapsed into bed. "Only one more year left. Too bad this summer will be so boring."

Perhaps it was her imagination, but the music in her head, which had returned mysteriously after weeks of absence, seemed to tell her that would not be so.

After school ended Christine's life fell quickly into routine. She woke up, showered, worked all day, came back, microwaved a quick meal and ate it while watching the news before falling into bed too early. She planned to sing on the weekends to keep her sound strong for the upcoming year, and searched for auditions in her time off. She wasn't able to see much of Raoul, though she missed him; her work and muddled feelings kept him at a safe distance. She planned out her summer exactly, knew how every day would go, and felt a relief in familiar, lonely routine.

Her first week wore down, and Friday came.

It was just after ten o'clock at night, and Christine's shift was finally over. She grabbed her coat off the rack, stuffed her apartment keys in the pocket, and shouted goodnight to her coworkers as she pushed open the smudged glass door and walked into the humid, dark air.

Her worn sneakers made no sound as she crossed the street and hurried to her apartment. The sidewalks were well lit and the diner was just outside of campus; she knew she shouldn't feel nervous walking alone but her recent paranoia made her jumpy even during the day.

Christine's shoulders tensed and her arms immediately locked around her purse as she heard voices up ahead. Two people were coming toward her, talking loudly: a man and a woman, in business suits, ties undone and shirt sleeves rolled up. The sight of their easy banter made her relax a bit, and as they passed the man reached out and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, Miss." His voice was light, and Christine paused and half turned to face him. He was extremely attractive, tall and thin like a model, with soft blond hair and blue eyes. He smiled with very white, even teeth.

"Yes?" she asked, still studying him. The woman to his right spoke.

"We've wandered into the wrong area and are a little lost. Do you think you could help us?" She sounded serious, and looked vaguely Russian, with tanned skin, brown hair, and prematurely lined eyes.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Duncan Street," the man said, smiling dazzlingly at her.

"Of course, just turn left over here…" she turned her back on them to point out the way, but stopped when she felt something cold pressed between her shoulder blades.

"I suggest you keep very quiet, Miss Danes," the woman said in a cold, businesslike tone. "Now turn around, slowly."

Christine turned, feeling such terror that she thought her heart would stop. The scene was exactly the same: the blond smiling casually, the woman stoic; the only difference was the gun in her hand.

"Now stay calm and don't panic, Miss Danes. We're not going to hurt you." The woman's voice sounded anything but soothing, and her hand was steady on the slick black gun. "You're perfectly safe with us, if you're good."

"And you _will_ be good," the man said, dangling handcuffs from one finger, his smile wicked. "Won't you?"

"Wh-wha-what's going on?" Christine whimpered, fear clogging her throat and the fight-or-flight response so strong it was seizing her muscles, making them twitch spasmodically.

"You're just going to meet someone, that's all. Nothing to it." The man's smile turned patronizing. "Look, kid, if you're cool, we won't even have to use the handcuffs. Right, Lina?"

The woman nodded and moved to take Christine's arm.

The movement shook her out of her paralyzing fear and, heedless of the consequences, she began to run. She only made it a few steps before someone grabbed her from behind. She swung out blindly; her fist connected with something hard and she heard a startled cry of pain before a heavy blow cracked down on her skull and everything went black.


	9. Reactions of Fear

**AN: I know that once some of you read this chapter it will start to look very familiar, as it's basically _Fear and Self Preservation_ tweaked and revised to fit the context of this story. Why? When I wrote _F&SP _many of the responses said that you wished it was not a one-shot…what you didn't realize was it wasn't. _Her Twisted Providence_ is _F&SP _made as a full-length fic. This chapter is also exactly how I would picture the reaction to this sort of situation, and I just couldn't bring myself to try and write anything different when this one seemed right in my mind. A few details are changed, though, and this chapter really is important to the story, so please R&R.**

**-Maat**

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**Chapter Nine: Reactions of Fear**

It was the fear that woke her.

And still she woke slowly, painfully, her head pounding, tongue thick and mouth dry. It was so hard to pull up from that dark, unnatural sleep, and the muscles around her eyes did not seem strong enough to open them.

Christine blinked slowly. Small dots of lights danced in front of her vision for a long moment, amplifying her disorientation. She blinked again, dazed. What had happened?

Gradually the images worked their way to the front of her mind, vaguely obscured by the childlike fog that clouded her thinking. There were people, strange people who scared her, scared her because…

Christine wrapped her arms around herself, the sharp rising terror bringing clarity to her thoughts. They scared her because they had a gun. They wanted to hurt her, they wanted to kidnap her!

Suddenly the fog was gone and understanding hit her with full force. The room spun as she lurched upward in the bed, breath coming out in short shallow gasps. Everything around her was dark and unfamiliar, and a rush of sickening fear swelled in her stomach, searing her lungs as she fought the urge to scream and scream and scream.

'_Where am I? Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God I don't know where I am.'_ She was hyperventilating now, her breath coming out in sharp wheezing gasps, too shallow, too fast. Christine's whole body shook pathetically, like a tree bending in a storm. The spots returned to her vision.

'_I can't pass out, I can't pass out, Oh God I'm going to die.'_ In that moment she felt the certainty of death, and along with it a consuming horror and an even more terrifying sadness. She was going to be raped and killed. She was never going to see her home, her friends, never going to sing on stage, or marry, walk in the sun or laugh at a joke or lay in bed with rain pounding on the roof, or, or…

Fear pushed the air from her lungs and clawed at her throat until she rolled to the side of the bed and vomited on the floor. Trembling, Christine pushed her hair back from her face and struggled to breathe, fighting a second wave of nausea.

'_I have to be coherent,'_ she told herself. _'I have to live, it can't end like this, I have to live, I…'_

The fear rose again as she suddenly thought of that man. Christine hesitated, trembling, then sat up and slid her hand awkwardly over her jeans and crotch, probing gently, searching for pain. _'I would know,'_ she thought frantically, _'It would hurt, wouldn't it? There would be blood…' _She stared down at her pants for a moment and then shakingly pushed the covers on the bed aside, not moving from her crouched position.

No blood. No pain. She hadn't been raped…yet.

A sigh of relief worked its way through Christine's lungs as she settled into a position behind the bed, her back to the wall, facing the closed door. Her breathing evened and the urge to vomit slid from her throat back to her stomach. She needed to be clear.

'_Maybe I can escape.' _She had heard of stories like that, of people chewing through bonds, slipping through windows. _'Maybe, maybe. But if, Oh God if someone's out there, if someone's waiting…'_

There was no doubt in Christine's mind that she was in danger. This wasn't a story. People didn't kidnap because they felt like it. Women who were kidnapped were beaten, raped, tortured, killed.

'_I can't stay here. I've got to try. I can't let them do that to me. Not me._' She swallowed thickly and swept her eyes over the dark room, seeing for the first time its lush heavy wallpaper and polished wood floor, ornate bookshelf, engraved writing desk, and solid, imposing wardrobe. They confused her, threw her deeper into incomprehension. Why these things? What was going on? Who had put her here? That man had said he was taking her to someone. Who?

'_It doesn't matter,'_ she thought. _'I pray I never find out. I need to get out. I need, I need…'_

She needed a weapon. Anything. She needed hope.

Slowly Christine pushed her back against the wall and shakily got to her feet, tottering for a moment like a stumbling colt and awkwardly slamming her hip into the writing desk with a soft whimpered cry of pain. The spots once again danced in front of her eyes. She took even breaths, trying to calm the panicked frenzy that was building inside of her head and ringing in her ears, a chorus of terrified screams begging to be let out.

Slowly the room came back into focus, still hopelessly dark and full of creeping shadows. She steadied herself and searched for a weapon.

On the bookshelf was an ornate vase, but it was heavy and squat and wouldn't swing very well. But there on the desk a candlestick gleamed silver in the darkness, fitted with a long ivory candle. Christine yanked the candle out and grasped the silver holder, lifting it tentatively. It was heavy and smooth. She took it in both hands and hefted it like a baseball bat, swinging it in a slow, controlled arc. Fine. It would do.

But now what? She pressed the palm of her hand, cool from the metal of the candlestick, to her forehead. What if someone was waiting for her just beyond that door? What if he attacked her? Could she hit him? Could she swing this beautiful, solid piece of silver and watch as it connected with another person's skull? Could she hear the dull crack, watch him as he fell to her feet, leave him there… leave him to die. Could she kill?

'_Yes,'_ her mind said before she could even think about it. _'To save myself, to protect myself…I could kill. I will, if I have to.'_

But what if both of her kidnappers were there, or more? Perhaps they were gone, perhaps there was only this _person_ to whom she had been taken, but how could she know? She couldn't take more than one person down, if that.

Christine clutched the candlestick blindly, realizing fully for the first time that she was not expecting to make it out of this. _'All I can really hope for is to take someone down with me,'_ she thought. _'I can't give up without a fight. I can't die like this. Broken. Without dignity. Not like this. I will make my father proud. And…and maybe I will see him again.'_

A cry almost escaped her lips. _'Oh Dad,' _she prayed desperately. _'Please help me! Someone, God someone please please help me. Please! I don't want to die!'_

She stood waiting, her hands wrapped around the candlestick, knuckles white, as if waiting for an answer to her pleas. The only sound was her harsh breathing.

Sweat dripped down her brow. She had to do it now, before she lost her nerve. She had to walk across the room and open the door. She had to walk, and turn a knob, and run, and fight, and maybe die, maybe kill. Maybe maybe maybe.

Christine spotted her sneakers lying neatly by the side of the bed and she sat down to pull them on, keeping a wary eye on the door the entire time. Her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely tie a knot.

Shoes tied and legs ready to run, she grasped the candlestick and stood.

'_Just do it,'_ she told herself. _'Just walk across the room and open the door. I can find an exit. And maybe no one will be there.'_

She repeated the words as a mantra as she forced her still-trembling legs across the room. _'No one will be there, no one will be there.'_ She stared at the knob, gleaming a dull brassy color in the darkness. _'No one will be there, no one will be there.'_ She brushed her fingers against it. It was cold. _'No one will be there, no one will be there.'_ She grasped the knob; it was large and round and too big for her hand. _'No one will be therenoonewillbetherenoonewill'_

She turned it.

The door arced open silently on well-oiled hinges as Christine raised the candlestick in anticipation. The room beyond seemed empty, quiet, lit by softly glowing lamps and cast in shades of black and red. Tentatively she slid out, keeping her back to the wall, and let her eyes sweep the room. Nothing, no one. She almost laughed, a little hysterical sound that bubbled in the back of her throat. Could she maybe get out of this unscathed?

And then a dark shadow unfurled itself from the far corner and strode toward her, and she, in her dumb horror, just stood there, blank, mystified, terrified.

The tall, thin man in the smooth mask stared down at her from an imposing height, and dimly she wondered how he had gotten so close to her so fast.

"Good evening, Miss Danes," he said in that same low, hypnotic voice that she had heard so often in her dreams. "I see that you have finally decided to emerge from your room. But what exactly are you planning to do with my candlestick?"

At his last words Christine seemed to snap back into her body and hefted the silver weapon in front of her. His gaze was unconcerned, almost bored, and she realized how ridiculous it was to ever think that she could hurt someone.

So she spoke in a fast, whispered voice, blurring all of her words together, reciting them like a memorized speech. So she begged. Pathetically, painfully, she begged.

"Please please please don't hurt me, you can have anything you want, I'll get you any money you want just please don't hurt me please let me go, I'll give you anything, all my funds, my money, anything, please don't hurt me."

His eyes widened slightly. "I…" he began, staring at the cowering girl before him, her whole body trembling in fear. "I would never hurt you. Never. That's not why you are here."

She was shaking her head as if she couldn't hear him. "Just let me go and I promise that I won't go to the police. Just don't hurt me. Please." She stared at him through thick, matted hair, her eyes pleading.

"I promise you that I do not have nor will ever have any intention of hurting you," he said softly. He moved closer and she skittered back, darting her eyes across the room, searching for an exit. "You need to trust me. I'm a friend." He spoke slowly, as if trying to soothe a frightened animal. "You have nothing to fear."

Her eyes flitted back to him. "Then why am I here?" she asked, desperation cracking her voice. She could feel the aching bump on the back of her head, a reminder of what had been done to her. "Those people held me at gunpoint. They hurt me." She sounded so weak. "Please don't hurt me."

His thin lips, slightly visible below the mask, curled into a frown as he stared at her with what in any other situation she would have believed to be concern.

"You are here because I am lonely," he said finally, that haunting voice hesitant. "You are someone that I have…admired and I wanted you to…be here with me. For just a little while. Just…to talk. You have a lovely voice, and I wanted you to sing…for me."

She stared at him as if he was speaking an incomprehensible language. "What?" she asked, her voice very small. "I don't understand."

"You will," he sighed. "You will. Just know that you are safe here. Those _people_," he said the word with disgust, "were not supposed to hurt you, and they will be dealt with. No harm will ever come to you here."

"Can I leave?" she asked in that same weak, tired child's voice.

"Not quite yet. Soon, though." He gestured with one long white hand for her to give him the candlestick. "You are safe here. I can assure you that there is no need for violence."

Slowly, and with a sagging of the shoulders that acknowledged defeat, Christine lifted her hand and passed the cool metal object over to him. She couldn't fight him, and maybe the best thing to do was stay calm and not make him angry. She was still so afraid, so tired. She just wanted to sleep.

"Perhaps you should go back to bed," he said, and she looked at him as if she hadn't heard, trying to read the strange emotion in his eyes, trying to piece together this incomprehensible puzzle, to dissuade her still consuming panic.

She looked at him and asked, "Why?"

She wasn't asking about going back to bed.

It was a question that encompassed everything, every moment of her fear and desperation. It asked for everything that was in his eyes, for all of his reasons, everything that he knew and that she did not understand. She hardened her voice and asked again.

"Why?"

He was silent.

They stared at each other across the dimly lit room, each lost to their own fears and thoughts, both wondering what the next step would be.

After what seemed like a long time she backed up skittishly before bolting for her room, and he was left in solitude once more.


	10. The Long Summer Starts

**Chapter Ten: The Long Summer Starts**

Christine didn't know how long she stayed huddled in that room.

It could have been hours, or days. She sat facing the door with her back to the wall, chin to her knees. She sat until her trembling, hysterical sobs dimmed to jumpy nervousness, and then to a kind of listless apathy. She sat until she could no longer feel her feet, until her hands were stiff with cold, but she didn't notice. For a time she was in shock, that disbelieving bliss of suspended animation where her relentless mind so believed that _this couldn't be happening_ that it took her far away.

Then she fell asleep, and when she woke the shock was gone, replaced by the cruel clarity of her situation, until the sobs started again.

Her heart pounded within her skull, a headache so fierce that it hurt to cry, hurt to breathe. Slowly Christine pushed her sleep-numbed legs away from her body and stretched onto the floor, back against the wall, cheek to the cool polished wood.

She stared at the door.

She tried meditation, but it wouldn't calm the tightly wound coil of muscles. She tried emptying her thoughts, but the headache's pain and a cord of fear kept her from resting.

She could do nothing else, so she stared at the door.

Christine realized belatedly that her weak limbs and the pounding in her head were probably from dehydration and lack of food, but she didn't dare move from her position on the floor. There were monsters out there. If she moved, they might see her. Might get her.

She couldn't move, so she stared at the door.

Once, dimly, she thought she heard her night dream music, but it was beyond the door, and she pushed it so firmly out of her mind that she believed it was no longer there.

She decided to pray as she stared at the door.

She risked movement enough (_don't let the monsters see!)_ to let one hand drift to the gold crucifix around her neck. She moved her dry lips in cracked, almost silent prayer.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."

'_Oh please let me wake up.'_

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

She stared at the door.

"Give us this day our daily bread."

'_I promise to be good.'_

"And forgive us our trespasses."

She stared at the door.

"As we forgive those who trespass against us."

'_Can you hear me?'_

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

She stared at the door.

"For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory."

'_CAN'T YOU HEAR ME?'_

"Forever and ever."

She stared at the door.

"Amen."

'_Amen. Amen. AmenAmenAmen. Please help me…'_

She stared at the door.

She stared at the door until her eyes grew heavy and she could stare no longer.

Christine's head jerked as she automatically brought her hand up to wipe the drool from her chin. When did she fall asleep? For how long? She couldn't tell if it was night or day. Her headache was still there, throbbing dully in her temples. How long had it been since she last ate?

The thought came to her with sudden, dreadful certainty, and it momentarily took her breath away.

If she didn't leave this room, if she didn't eat or drink, she would die here. Alone.

She slid her aching body into a sitting position and winced as her angry stomach shuddered. Every swallow felt like knives.

'_I'm killing myself,' _Christine realized. '_If he decides to kill me or not, I'm killing myself. I have to…oh God, I have to leave this room.'_

Her eyes swept the shadowed bedroom in desperation, and they fell on a door that she had not seen before. It was partially opened, and through it a long sink and a clear mirror were vaguely visible. Her heart jumped into her throat.

'_A bathroom…'_

Shakily she rose and stumbled across the wood floor to push the door fully open. Christine stared, briefly taken aback at the sight of a huge sunken bath, her fingers sliding over cool marble.

The sink taps were bright silver, gleaming starkly in the darkness, and her trembling fingers turned them desperately, but no water flowed. She jerked on them, swiveling the knob from hot to cold and back again, but they refused to turn on. She realized, almost intuitively, that it must be by design. That he must have turned the taps off…that he must have cut off her water supply to force her to leave the room. That her last hope had failed.

Christine turned away from the bathroom and eyed the door with stark, utter fear. Her stomach twitched spasmodically.

'_Just think,' _she told herself firmly. _'I'm an actress. If I can't go through that door, someone else can. Someone stronger.'_

She scanned her mind for images, memories, childhood playmates. A wavering, almost-but-never-forgotten image swam before her eyes and she grabbed onto it. Christine had always been a dressy, girly girl, but when she was a small child she had an imaginary friend who was tough and rode skateboards and wore her baseball cap backwards. Her name was Jenny.

'_Ok.'_ She relaxed like she did right before a show, lolling her head back and flexing her fingers, letting her muscles unwind like a spool of string. _'I know this character. I am Jenny. Christine is not tough enough to walk through that door, even to save her own life, but Jenny is, and that is who I have to be. I am tough, and I kick ass, and I'm not afraid to go out there because I always do what needs to be done and I am never, ever afraid.'_

Christine nodded, letting her eyes close as she straightened her back. '_I stand like this, chin high. I have a good center of gravity. I think, I reason, I act, and most importantly I survive. If I am tense, I crack my knuckles. I like peanut butter but not jelly. I hate ballet. I like math but I am horrible at it. These sneakers are my favorite pair. I'm a fast runner and I've played sports since I was five years old. I, Jenny, have a mom and a dad waiting for me, so I have to make it out of this. But most of all, I am strong.'_

The method acting helped. Christine stood there for several long, still minutes, dragging her character out, fitting into her skin. Jenny was afraid of little spiders but not big ones. She hated fish. She liked to hoola hoop, even though she was too old for it. She wanted to meet the man of her dreams in Africa while on a safari. She didn't like people like Christine.

She didn't like her situation, but she sure as hell wasn't going to let herself die because of it.

Christine raised her head, opened her eyes, and, moving with a lower, firmer center of balance she walked quickly to the door and opened it.

This time his gaunt, foreboding presence met her eyes immediately, and the desire to run back inside the room and never come out, starvation or not, was so strong that for a moment her iron-hard persona faltered. But she forced Jenny to stare out of her eyes, and she regained control.

"I need to eat," she said, the words sounding foreign to her ears. He looked up at her wearily from his position in the deep, comfortable-looking chair that faced the room, and for a moment Christine wondered if he had been sitting there the whole time, waiting.

"Of course."

He rose with an unearthly grace, long limbs unfolding, one white hand spreading elegantly to beckon her to an arched doorway. She followed with mistrust, hovering just outside of the simple kitchen, jutting her chin out in a manner both childish and defiant.

He offered her a glass of water, but she shook her head at it. "I want to do it myself," she muttered warily, and he nodded.

"Of course," he said again, stepping to the side. She skittered around his tall form to shakily fill the cup from the tap. "One must never eat or drink anything given to them in the underworld…in any place of magic. You know that."

She narrowed her eyes, startled that he knew of her longtime fascination with mythology. "How do you know I know that?" she asked. He shrugged, ever graceful.

"I know many things about you."

There was silence for a moment before he continued, his tone almost casual.

"I know, for instance, that you never jut your chin out in the awfully defiant way that you are attempting right now." He paused, studying her. "Ah," he whispered. "Little actress. Could you truly not come out here in your own skin?"

Christine felt her jaw drop. How had he seen through her? A chill passed through her body. Did he know her that well, know her every look, every subtle piece of body language? As this new realization flooded into her mind she clutched the cup to her chest and ran blindly back to her room, door slamming shut with an odd echoing boom.

She emerged several hours later, without pretense or the protection of a character. He was gone. Christine walked hesitatingly through the different rooms of the house, not wanting to be taken by surprise, and for the first time really noticed her surroundings.

The sitting room was sprawling but somber, with thick black couches and several squat, squashy chairs centered around a low, long glass coffee table. The floor was wood, partially covered by a large oriental rug in shades of red and black. Unlovely metal lamps sat on small chests on either side of the mostly barren space. The walls were empty and dark, save for a heavy armoire with wide panes of glass protecting strange and exotic items that she couldn't identify in the half-darkness. Christine made a note to exam it later, when she wasn't about to faint from hunger. It seemed that she would have the time to.

She saw no telephone, no radio, no television, no computer, no connection to the outside world whatsoever. There were no doors to the outside, though on the far side of the room a sliver of light beckoned.

The room beyond was large and barren, with a wooden floor and dark walls, filled only with instruments nestled in thick cases, their polished surfaces glowing dully in the muted light. She scanned the room for the man in black, but no one was there, so she walked through the labyrinth of silent instruments, resisting the urge to run her fingers over their perfection. Oboe, flute, violin, cello, drums, guitar, trumpet, harp, French horn, clarinet, and others; even a few exotics like a mandolin, and in the corner the large dark shadow of a grand piano. The atmosphere was peaceful, almost a little sad, like it had the memory of forgotten symphonies imbedded in the walls; it was chill, a graveyard of silenced instruments, and Christine shuddered.

There were three doors in that room, one closed and almost unnoticeable, one the way she had just come, the last slightly open. She tried the handle of the closed door, but it was locked and she was too afraid to knock. The thought whispered in her mind that it might be the way out, but she dismissed it. Something about it seemed out of place.

Christine paused, thinking. The strange man was the one who played to her at night, though she still did not understand how, and he owned these lovely cold instruments; he would not want his house entered by way of this room that had the feeling of sanctuary. She abandoned the closed door and found her way to the final sliver of light.

Her feet touched carpet; it was plush, a heavy maroon, the only room so far to have carpeting. She studied it for a moment, the way her thin-soled sneakers sunk into the thick softness, before raising her head and gasping.

It was a long room, but abnormally shaped; it seemed to spread out in all directions, with winding little passageways and corridors, oddly angled walls, and a strange filtered light that came from no lamps she could see. It was as if she was standing at the edge of some vast creation that would only make sense when viewed from the sky. But her eyes were drawn to the books, what must have been thousands upon thousands of books, covering the walls, lining the strange jagged staircases that led to upper levels, heaped around small dark chairs and long wheeled ladders, piled despite the size of the room on top of each other, huddled together almost protectively against the torpid deadness of the house.

Christine blinked and took a few steps over the thick carpeting, her hunger momentarily forgotten in her sheer, overwhelming awe. Fear slunk backward into her head. She was alone; she could sense it, though the hint of his presence, some odd, almost dead smell that she couldn't place, still lingered in the stagnant air. Dimly she noticed that none of the rooms had windows.

Her stomach gave a sharp lurch and she drew back into herself with sudden panic. How long had she been entranced, examining this strange house? It was as if the walls themselves held some powerful fascination, enough to quell her fear and aching hunger. If the house was capable of creating such a compelling reaction, what of the man himself? She ran out of the library with the sudden need to be in surroundings she recognized, even if they scared her.

She passed through the music room and into the dark sitting room. Christine shuddered, feeling sick to her stomach, the hunger suddenly overwhelming, and warily entered the kitchen.

To her surprise, the small table was set with fruit and water and cold porridge, the kind Auntie V used to make when she was a child. She stared at it for a moment—was the porridge a coincidence, or did he know that about her as well?— before focusing her attention on the small note carefully folded on a plate. The knotted paper and clumsy handwriting were so familiar that her throat closed momentarily and she had to steady herself before reading it.

**Christine,**

**I hope that you are feeling better, and that you have now come to realize I mean you no harm. I know that you must be hungry, but your body is weak so do not overeat. I am running errands but will be back at 3:00. I ask only that when I return you do not continue to hide in your room. We have many things to discuss. Feel free to explore the house; I am sure you will find it interesting.**

**Until then.**

There was no name, but at the bottom of the page a PS was scrawled.

**Do not fear eating my food. Had I wished to drug you I could have done it easily, so do not worry.**

She knew that it was intended as a reassurance, but the words seemed oddly threatening. Christine eyed the food apprehensively, then the small clock set on the table. It was 2:45.

Relenting, she sat down to eat.

He appeared in the archway of the kitchen at exactly 3:00, and though she had been waiting she started at the sight of him. She had not heard him enter the house, not a door opening or closing, nor footsteps or even breath. He moved like a ghost, and only the strange sense of his _presence_ in a room let her know that he was there at all.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and she noticed for the first time the strange yellow hue to his eyes. '_Like a cat's,'_ she thought disconnectedly. '_Like something feral and wild.'_

There was silence for such a long time that it started to crush her, but before she could fly into another panic he spoke, that lovely-frightening voice almost soothing as it hung bell-like in the air.

"It is good to see you, Christine. My name is Erik."


	11. Conversations and Confrontations

**AN: Thanks, as usual, to everyone who reviewed, though honestly (and not to sound like a total review whore), I would like to see some new faces on the review board. I know from my stats that this has been read a lot and favorited and alert listed quite a bit, but I'm not hearing from these people. I don't know if asking will help me get any more thoughts from people, but I thought I'd try.**

**Oh, and PS: the f-word is included in this chapter, so I wanted to give a heads up in case that offends anyone.**

**I hope you're all enjoying this!**

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**Chapter Eleven: Conversations and Confrontations**

Christine sat there and stared at him, stunned. Tears welled in her eyes despite her efforts to stay calm. She wanted to scream at him to let her go. '_I can't stay here!'_ She began to curl in her chair, her fists at her mouth like a child. _'Go away!'_

His hand swam into view, blurred by her almost-tears, long, bonelike fingers hovering hesitantly over her knee. She realized that he was kneeling in front of her and speaking, _begging_, and somehow the sheer desperate humility horrified her even more.

"Oh please, _please _don't cry," he bowed his head, hands drifting close to the worn hem of her dark pants but not touching. "I can't stand to see you cry."

She tried to keep her voice from cracking. "Then let me go."

"I will, I will! That is what you don't understand!" He raised his head to stare at her intently, his yellow eyes strangely vivid in the flat, emotionless stretch of black leather.

Her heart began to pound wildly. What had he just said? She looked for what seemed like the first time and truly saw him: his tall figure hunched birdlike before her, so painfully thin, all sharp edges and protruding joints, long limbs and bone, like a puppet imperfectly fashioned, hung by invisible strings. His hair was black, thick and almost unnaturally stiff, and she had a sudden wild urge to touch it, to see if it was real.

She did not want to touch the mask.

Her eyes traced its black border along the top of his forehead, down the edges of his face, where it raised rigidly across the nose and lay smooth and flat across his cheeks, almost to the jaw. Christine knew that it, more than anything else, was her hope of making it out of here alive. As long as she did not see her captor's identity she might be able to get away, to survive this. She was thankful for the mask; she felt as if it protected her as much as it protected him. She knew that she would never, ever be stupid enough to try and see what was underneath it.

Her gaze finally settled on his eyes, on that feral, unhealthy yellow that burned into her, and as Christine flinched and turned away her voice escaped, too hopeful. "You will?" she asked, weak with relief. His mouth, just barely visible under the swooping curve of the mask, seemed to smile.

"Soon," he promised, his eyes intense. "Soon."

"I…why? Why do I have to stay? Why can't I go now?"

"Because I can't let you go." His hand clenched convulsively, long white fingers curling into a fist, knuckles jaggedly protruding. "Not yet. Not until we talk and I know…not until I know that you will come back."

She drew in a sharp breath. "How…how long?"

He gazed brokenly at her, and there was something reflected in those eerie eyes that she did not want to contemplate. "Long enough," he whispered.

She said nothing so he continued, his heartbreakingly beautiful voice desperate. "But you need to know, _know_ that you have nothing to fear here. Not from me. No one in the world can touch you here. You are free from all pain, all distractions, all…loneliness. I wanted….to give that to you," his voice became quiet. "You were hurting so much," he whispered. "I was afraid that you would break."

He was still on his knees, and Christine drew a deep shuddering breath before forcing herself to look him in the eye. "Why me?" She said, trembling. "Why…all of this? Why am I here, if you don't want to hurt me? I have nothing, no money, no…anything!" Her voice was rising hysterically. "Why the night music, the gifts, everything that you have done for months to intrude on my life? Why was I taken, why don't I have a choice? Why me? What do you want from me?"

He stared at her for a moment, and then let out a laugh that sounded like a cry. "You truly do not know?"

"No!" Christine almost screamed. "No, no, I'm so confused…" her voice trailed off dully. "I'm so confused," she whispered again. "Why me?"

His voice was soft, almost breakable, like the slightest movement could shatter the frail sound. "Because I'm in love with you."

She felt her heart constrict within her chest. "Who are you?"

"I am Erik. Just Erik. Just…a man. I won't hurt you. We will speak, you will get to know me, you will see that I am no one to be feared. Will you…will you stay?" He asked almost as if she had a choice, though they both knew she didn't.

When she bowed her head in acknowledgement, or grief, he bent his head to her feet in supplication and kissed the hem of her pants while she cried softly above him.

He left as quietly as he had come, and when Christine opened her eyes she was alone with her thoughts. She slowly retreated back into the quiet sanctuary of her room, her prison, contemplating all that had happened during that small exchange.

Questions still swirled in her brain. Who was he, really? How did he even find her, notice her? Out of all of the people on earth, why was she the one that this was happening to? Where exactly was she now? How long would she still be there? Did he truly mean not to harm her? And what of his cryptic words that night in Maine? _The first step_, he had said. _One day you will amaze the world._ None of that made any sense in the context of her situation.

Or maybe he was just crazy, and there weren't any answers to her questions. Maybe she really would die here, imprisoned for the rest of her days until she slowly faded away.

Christine surveyed her room, trying to resist the urge to destroy its rich beauty. '_When did I stop being in control of my life?'_ she wondered. _'How long has he been watching me? My first clue was in November, but how long before that? How long has he been manipulating the events of my life to suit him? And how, _how_ does this crazy man have so much power? I think he owns the school, businesses…how?'_

And then again the thought came unbidden to her mind. '_Why me?'_

The questions would not leave her brain, but they were soon pushed to the side by her overwhelming desire to escape. The captivity felt like claustrophobia.

'_I have to get away.'_

How exactly she would do it, she would think of later. For now, she only knew that it must be done.

_'Can I gain his trust?'_ Christine gazed warily at her closed door. '_Perhaps…and I still need those questions answered. He promised he wouldn't hurt me, and while I'm not inclined to trust maniacs who kidnap me, I don't think he will…for now. The man kissed the hem of my pants!' _She involuntarily shuddered at the thought. _'He seems to only want me to stay. And he said he wanted to talk, so maybe….we'll talk.'_

Slightly emboldened by the thought that her imminent death was improbable, she took a deep, swallowing breath and emerged once again from her room.

He was sitting on the long black couch, and eyed her warily, as if nervous or ashamed by his previous show of servility. He seemed stronger now, his shoulders no longer hunched, his height imposing even while sitting. He rose to greet her, his every manner that of a kind, sane gentleman, his feral eyes serious.

"Won't you take a seat, Christine?" He seemed to breathe in sharply and cast her an anxious look, his imposing exterior cracking briefly. "May I…call you Christine?"

_'Well you fucking stalked me for months and kidnapped me, so I guess we're on a first name basis, you psychopathic son of a bitch!'_ The raging anger, previously obscured by her fear rose to the surface, startling in its intensity. For one tense moment the fight or flight response once again pushed adrenaline into her veins, though this time it was fight that won out; she want to leap onto that black clad figure and rend him limb from limb. Christine took a long, calming break, unnerved by the ferocity of her thoughts, and nodded.

"Of course."

She sat rigidly, her hands crossed in her lap, watching as he slowly folded himself back onto the couch. His every movement was compelling to watch: graceful, like a great cat, controlled power and strength, though his body seemed so painfully thin and almost frail. He was staring at her again, waiting for her to speak, so she did.

"I have questions."

He seemed to smile. "I have answers." His response was almost flippant, and her eyes burned with unshed tears. How dare he mock her circumstances!

Christine fought to keep her voice even. "How…I mean…how long has this been going on?"

He sighed deeply. "That is difficult to say." His eyes remained on hers but his left hand began to move rhythmically across the top of the couch. She followed it with her eyes; it seemed a nervous movement, despite its graceful flow. "I first noticed you last July, when you were in that ghastly rendition of 'Guys and Dolls.' Your part was small, but your voice was clear, lovely, and caught my attention immediately."

She blinked, trying to digest the information. "You…you saw 'Guys and Dolls?'"

Again he seemed to smile. "Theater of any kind is my passion, and though I always prefer opera over trifling musicals I sometimes like to test other venues. There is always talent to be discovered in strange places. Should someone catch my attention – which is rarely- I usually help them if I can. Give them contacts, possibilities, jobs…" he trailed off before continuing without breaking his eerie eye contact with her. "Then there was you. While you obviously had talent it was so hidden under pain and sadness that it was almost unnoticeable. I needed to know more about your past before helping you with your future. Your pain…intrigued me. I felt almost…protective as I watched you suffer. You're very strong." His words took her by surprise, but she did not interrupt. He finished so quietly that Christine could barely hear him, and she unconsciously leaned forward to catch his last words. "I did not mean to fall in love with you."

The room was silent for a long moment as they studied each other before he finally broke eye contact and murmured, "Any more questions?"

Christine swallowed her anxiety and phrased her next question delicately as she sifted through all that she had heard and all that he had told her. One large question loomed in her mind and she asked it tentatively.

"Who are you, really? What do you do? You say you have contacts, but…" '_But you're just an insane masked man living in a batshit crazy house with no windows.'_

He leaned forward as if hearing her unspoken thoughts. "That is a very important question, and the answer is something that you need to pay close attention to." His eyes were intense, burning. "I am an incredibly powerful man. Though you see only me, here; though you probably hold contempt and fear of me and think that I am crazy, I am indeed a most important person outside of this house. Let me make you understand this clearly. Every company, every business, every university, every theater, every court, every _thing_ in this country is at least partially owned by me. I don't mean to sound condescending, but you have no idea how much power I wield. I may live on the fringes, in the shadows; I may be someone that you will never hear of, even if you spend your life looking, but I am everywhere. Please, Christine, I beg of you, do not underestimate this."

She stood suddenly, her face white. '_Oh God, on top of everything he's a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur!' _she thought. '_He really is crazy!'_

"How long will I be here?" she asked wildly. "How long until you let me go?"

"Not long," he answered evasively, but his eyes were still burning. "Christine, Christine, think of what I have told you. To try and escape would be madness." He rose to his feet so that he towered over her and his voice took on a new, beautifully powerful tone. "You can not escape me, Christine, and the moment you put that wish out of your mind the better things will be. Once you forget that wild thought we can concentrate on your music, your future." His words, which should have been so frightening, were tempered by his voice, which was suddenly low and hypnotic, like when he used to sing to her at night. Against her will Christine found herself pulled in by the beauty of that voice, by the sheer peace and the trust it inspired in her. She could feel him drawing closer, but she did not move.

"Trust me," he whispered, his hand rising to linger so close to her face. Her eyes were half closed, that voice stripping her defenses away. She wanted so badly to _believe._

"Forget the outside world, with all of its pain and disappointment. I can show you so many things that you've never even dreamed of. Just trust me, my beautiful Christine, and you can have the world." His finger gently traced the curve of her cheek, and the death cold touch jolted her out of her trance, one strong thought rising to the surface of her consciousness.

'_Everything but my freedom.'_

Christine wrenched herself out of his cold grasp and stared at him, shaking her head frantically. "No!" she screamed. _'Get out of my mind!'_ "I will get away!" she howled irrationally. "You can't keep me here! You can't!"

She turned on her heel and fled the room, leaving him once again to stare forlornly after her. He dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Damn," he whispered, rubbing his finger where he had touched her against his masked cheek. "I was hoping that I wouldn't have to do this, but she…" He raised his head to stare at her closed door. "She will never stop fighting."

Quietly he left the room through a door that only he knew of, and soon the house stood empty once again, except for the lone girl who sobbed quietly in her room.


	12. May Escapes

**AN: I just wanted to leave a little note to thank my reviewers. It made me so happy to read all that you had to say. Thank you! I'm glad that you like my dark Erik; he's difficult to write because he expresses himself through either extreme submission or dominance, he has no internal balance, but I think I'm slowly mastering his personality.**

**Please Read and Review!**

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**Chapter Twelve: May Escapes**

It was hours before Christine cautiously stuck her head out of her door and scanned the dismal sitting room for signs of life. When none were forthcoming she let out her held breath with a low sound of relief and tiptoed toward the kitchen.

Food was laid out on the small table but there was no note. She searched the area thoroughly, even checked the refrigerator door, but there was nothing to indicate where he had gone or when he would be back. Christine didn't even have to check the other rooms; some stillness, some overarching hollow silence filled the house with the knowledge that she was alone.

And though she hated her captor and felt nothing but fear in his presence, the sudden idea of being in this vast strange house all alone filled her with utter claustrophobic terror.

Stifling the unexpected whimpers that sounded from her mouth, Christine forced herself to sit and eat. She stared at the stark table, one hand propping her head up, and as her thoughts drifted the fingers on her scalp touched the slick feel of oil and grime and reminded her of how filthy she was. How long had she been here? She felt like she hadn't showered in weeks; her hair hung in clumped, ropy strands around her face, and her clothes were grubby and smelled strongly of BO. The inside of her mouth tasted awful, like dirt and old cotton.

After a few bites she stopped eating; her stomach felt too weak to hold any more, and she already felt vaguely queasy. Shakily she stood and began to make her way to her room, her mind focused on the hopeful idea of a shower while the maniac was gone, and perhaps a toothbrush with some strong mouthwash.

She was halfway across the room when she noticed the door.

It was unremarkable, plain and wide and gray, except for the fact that yesterday it had been a blank stretch of wall.

Christine froze in her tracks. Where the hell had that come from? She stared at it for one long moment before approaching it cautiously. It had a large silver doorknob which she fully expected to be locked.

She reached out a hand to touch it and it swung outward in a silent graceful arc.

Christine jerked her hand back as if she had been burned. It was semi dark beyond the door, but even in the dim light Christine could tell what it was.

A hallway.

She took a step back, her hand to her chest, trying to fight the unreasoning hope and excitement that flooded her veins. This couldn't be possible. He couldn't have been so careless as to leave open a way out. He couldn't have been so _blind_.

Could he?

After a moment she decided not to question her blind luck, and with a swelling surge of optimism she raced out of the door and into the hall.

It stretched long and dark in both directions, but the dim light seemed to emanate from the right and she chose it instinctively, hoping against hope that it led to a window or a door.

She followed the light without reservation. The hallway twisted and turned, split, and gave her glimpses into other halls that were still and dark, but the hallways she chose were always the ones that were lit. The light seemed important somehow, and she tried to put her father's old stories of will-o-wisps out of her mind.

She came upon a cross section where her hall intersected with eight other possibilities, some leading up, some down, some with stairs, some with smooth ramps, some flat. Some were wide as a house or as thin as a person. Christine stared around the labyrinth in awe for a few moments before seeking out the light that led downward and following it once again.

She was getting close. She could feel it, taste freedom.

And then, after many more minutes of running and going down several more floors, she saw true daylight for the first time, and her heart felt like it would burst.

Christine pushed through the small backdoor with one wild motion and partially collapsed on the street. Oh God, was she really outside? Were those really cars that she heard whizzing past on some nearby highway? Could her trials almost be over?

Her moment of elation passed as Christine remembered that she wasn't home free yet. She stood and began to run again, down what seemed to be a driveway and across a small road. Then, struck by curiosity, she turned around to look at her former prison.

It was huge, a hulking, abandoned apartment complex that rose into the sky. Its windows were bordered up, and a sign hanging crookedly on the front door said that it was closed for repairs. There wasn't a soul around, and no cars were in the driveway.

'_Does no one know that he lives there?'_ she thought, amazed. '_But what about those crazy hallways? Was the place built like that?'_ A thought struck her and she pushed it aside, afraid of its gut wrenching, chilling possibilities. '_Was it never really an apartment complex in the first place?'_

Turning her head on the staring abomination, Christine began to run again. She focused her wandering mind on the most important task of her life: finding a police station.

As she jogged down the street and tried to control her breathing and the already painful stitch in her side, Christine noticed that she was still obviously in a city. Buildings were rising around the street she ran on, and occasionally pedestrians ambled by. It wasn't a very rich section of town but it was bright and relatively clean, and the people seemed to be going to work. She realized belatedly that the sun was rising and that she had no idea what day it was, or even what city was she was in.

Frantically she skidded to a stop and grabbed the arm of a passerby. "Excuse me," she gasped, clutching the pain in her side. "Can you tell me what city I'm in?"

The person, a heavyset woman in her mid forties, looked at her as if she were crazy. Christine awkwardly remembered her filthy hair and dilapidated clothing, and removed her hand from the woman's arm.

Slightly mollified though still unnerved, the woman answered primly, "You're in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania," she added for good measure before starting to walk away.

'_I'm still in Philly!'_

Christine grabbed her arm again. "Please, can you tell me where the nearest police station is? Or…or a pay phone where I can call 911?"

The woman eyed her with a mixture of concern and suspicion. "There's a police station just a few blocks away," she said. "Or if you would like to wait a few minutes I could get someone to drive you."

"No thanks, could you just tell me where it is?" Christine wasn't about to get into anybody's car right now unless it was a policeman's. The woman gave her brief directions and Christine shouted her thanks as she ran off, adrenaline surging through her veins.

She was almost there. Almost free.

Christine ran for about ten more minutes, clutching her side and gasping for breath, pushing herself to her limit. Every shadow made her jump and spurred her speed, and several times she thought that a passerby was going to grab her and drag her away. Once she could have sworn she saw a dark figure watching her from behind a window, but when she twisted her head to look it was gone.

She turned the corner onto Greenleaf Circle and a small sign pointing in the direction of the police station caught her attention. It led her across a highway and down a busy street until she felt completely lost, but then, hidden behind a Laundromat and a coffee house was a squat gray building with black and white cars parked in front of it.

Christine stopped, momentarily amazed. She had done it. She could have kissed that building, those so-safe-seeming cars.

Taking one fortifying, gasping breath she tried to walk calmly into the police station but ended up running wildly, tears streaming down her face.

Several of the officers paused as she flew through the glass doors, a thin, grimy figure with greasy hair, filthy clothes, shining wet eyes and cheeks, and an expression torn between panic and elation.

Christine nearly ran into the main desk and half collapsed upon it. Her mind became hazy; later she could only remember gasping out that she had been kidnapped before sliding on the floor and being surrounded by police officers who looked at her with caring, concerned faces. She remembered her hair being gently pushed away from her face and questions being fired at her by someone with a crisp, official sounding voice.

But most of all she remembered the sheer sensation of being back with humanity, of being protected, and as her mind blurred over only one thought was clear.

It was over. She was finally safe.


	13. Utter Entrapment

**AN: I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your reviews. I'm so excited to be getting into the heart of the story and I'm glad that you're excited too. These next few chapters are going to be very stressful, so I would recommend holding on tight!**

**As always, please Review with any thoughts you might have.**

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**Chapter Thirteen: Utter Entrapment**

"Do you like iced tea, miss?"

A young officer hovered in front of the still shaking Christine, a cool glass in his hand. She smiled nervously and accepted it with thanks, shifting to a more comfortable position in the hard wooden chair before taking a big gulp. He continued to stand near her, his face concerned.

"Do you think that you'd be ok to talk to some people soon? The quicker you answer their questions the faster this can all be over and we can catch whoever did this, and you can go home." He was so earnest, so eager to do his job that it made her smile.

"Sure, I can answer any questions you'd like to ask," Christine affirmed quietly. "Just as long as you can guarantee that I'll be safe."

He bobbed his head. "Of course. I'll be right back."

Christine smiled serenely as she sipped on her tea and stared blankly ahead at the bustling, noisy police station. There was such a feeling of _safety _here: officers in crisp blue uniforms with heavy guns at their sides juxtaposed with cluttered desks and, a little further back, a few mostly empty cells. There was a wonderful sense of organized chaos, of being in a room filled with people who fought every day to protect others.

"Miss Danes?"

Christine glanced up, startled out of her reverie. A tall, strong jawed man of about fifty towered above her, his stern face attempting to look gentle. She swallowed, inexplicably nervous, like it was she who had done something wrong, like this was to be an interrogation, not a simple question answer session.

Suddenly his grim mouth broke into a compassionate smile, like the sun breaking out from behind the clouds, and he enclosed her hand in his large, calloused one.

"I have to say how admirable what you did was," he said, his voice serious. "You didn't lose your head and relied on your wits to stay alive and escaped a dangerous and potentially fatal situation. You're really an inspiration, Miss Danes. You must be very strong."

She gaped at him silently for a minute, suddenly unnerved by his last statement which almost mirrored one of the things that Erik had said to her. "_You're very strong."_

_'Am I?'_ she thought. _'All I did was survive. How does that make me strong?'_

Christine realized that the officer was speaking to her again, and she tried to focus on what he was saying. She noticed absently that his tag read "Jones."

"….Anything that you can remember. Any detail will help us."

Christine took a swig of her iced tea and deep breath. "I'll tell you everything that I remember," she promised, then launched into the story, from the music left at the grave, to the medication for her aunt, even to the suddenly important seeming loss of Raoul's family's company. She recounted the frightening, smiling people who had abducted her, and her first realization that she was trapped in that house. But it was when she mentioned his name that something odd happened.

She could have imagined it, but the officer standing next to her seemed to suck in his breath. Jones leaned in intently and asked her to describe exactly what he looked like. She struggled her way through the description of his tall, skin and bone figure, unearthly grace, heartrendingly beautiful voice, and finally his odd yellow eyes and full face mask of smooth black leather.

This time she knew she didn't imagine it; Jones looked deeply troubled and glanced at the other officers with a gaze that seemed to register something to them that was incomprehensible to her. His questions became rapid fire and unrelenting: how long were you there? Were you harmed in any way? Were you raped? (Where she flushed awkwardly and shook her head in a fierce 'no.') What exactly did he say to you? Do you believe that he would hurt you? Some of the questions seemed out of place and extraneous (are you sure the mask was _black?_ Do you have any idea how he _spelled _his name?) and soon her head was dizzy with them. After another half an hour she was finally left alone, but her eyes followed Jones for a long time as he paced the floor, muttered with colleagues, and finally made his way to a far corner where he hesitantly picked up a ringing phone and spoke into it for a long time.

Christine sat there for what seemed like hours watching the police station, which suddenly seemed disorganized and frenzied. Many times when officers were huddled together and speaking low voices she could have sworn they glanced her way. Voices were raised in argument, though the words were inaudible. Jones in particular seemed distressed; his wide, stern mouth pursed together, his posture stiff, his hands moving in nervous motions at the cuffs of his shirt.

Finally, as her eyes were drooping shut against her will and her mind was falling into a pleasant state of numbed unconsciousness, Jones made his way over to her chair, his expression sober.

"Miss Danes," he said, his voice jerking out of her half asleep state and nearly causing her to fall off of her chair. She righted herself quickly and stared into his face.

"Is everything ok?" she asked, and he stared at her for a long time, like he had never seen anything quite like her before.

"It seems that we have run into a problem, Miss Danes. The person you described is known as dangerous and while we are attempting to apprehend him I'm afraid that you must be moved to a more secure location. Immediately."

She stared up at him uncomprehendingly. "Where?" She asked after a long moment. "Where will I go? And when can I return?"

He paused, and for some reason that brief hesitation caused a small hard rock of unease to settle in Christine's stomach. "The location is secure. For your own safety, that's all I can tell you. Let's go. The sooner we get this over with," he stopped for a moment, searching her face again. "The safer you'll be."

Jones took her arm with a gentle but firm grip and led her outside to a waiting car. He opened the backseat door for her, but before getting in she paused and laid one hand on his arm.

"Officer Jones…" she stared up into his face, searching his as he had searched hers but not finding what she was looking for. "Thank you. For everything. Thank you so much."

His face twisted as if he had swallowed something sour but he nodded gruffly and motioned for her to sit inside the car. From the back seat she watched him as they pulled away, as his large figure grew smaller and smaller before finally disappearing altogether. Twining her fingers nervously around her cross necklace she sat with her head against the window as the car moved smoothly across the pavement, and noticed quietly that it had begun to rain.

"So where exactly am I going?" she asked, not taking her eyes from the window where thick, fat drops of summer rain were sliding lazily down the clean glass.

"You know, I've only been married for five years, but I've already got two kids and one more on the way. Can you believe that?" He wasn't answering her question, and his response was so out of the blue that Christine found herself cocking her head, confused.

"Oh, that's nice," she said slowly. He nodded and continued talking, his voice steady but spoken with a barely noticeable tremor.

"Right now I have two little girls," he continued. "And the doctor says that our new one is going to be a boy. We're all so excited; the girls can't wait to have a brother. They're really little angels. Everyone is so proud of me, being a policeman. Anna and Susan brag to everyone they meet."

"Ah," she said awkwardly. "Well, they sound wonderful."

"They are." He gripped the wheel tighter. "I love them all so very much. My wife is amazing. My family…they mean the world to me. They're my world. I don't know what I'd do without them. 'Daddy is a police officer,' they say. 'He protects people.' And I do. Especially them. I'd do anything to protect them. Anything."

Slowly she sat up, staring at him, and a horrible winding worm of paralyzing fear started in her stomach and moved up her windpipe. Her hands started to shake.

"Where are you taking me?" She whispered.

The officer clenched the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white. "I have to protect them," he gasped out. "You understand that, don't you? They're my _family_."

Christine placed hands against the thick plastic barrier that separated them. "Where are you taking me?" She asked, her voice louder and more hysterical. "Stop the car."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but you have to understand…my _girls…_"

"Stop the car!" Christine screamed as she fumbled with the car doors, which refused to unlock. "Stop the car now!"

"I'm sorry…."

Frantically she slammed her hands against the plastic barrier. "Stop the car!" She screamed. "Let me out!"

"I can't…Oh God…please forgive me…" His shoulders were shaking softly, as if he was crying.

Fighting a rising panic attack, Christine faced the window and did the only thing she could think of. She pressed her back against the black seat and pushed out with her legs, slamming her tennis shoes into the bullet proof window. She slammed and slammed and slammed, the soles of her shoes hitting the glass with dull thonking noises, but the window refused to budge.

"Please don't do that." He seemed to be regaining some of his calm. She turned her attention to the thick plastic between her and the officer and slammed into it with her feet, but it did no good.

"Let me out!" she screamed as her feet connected crackingly with the plastic. "Let me out, please! Stop the car, stop the goddamned car!"

"Try to understand, Miss…"

"What if it were your daughters?" She howled. "What if it were your children here? Please, help me!"

That stunned him into silence, and for a moment she thought he was going to relent. But he only turned his head to the road and muttered, "I'm sorry."

"You can't do this to me!" She shrieked, her face red and wild and wet with tears. "I'm a human being! You can't do this to me! You're supposed to _protect _people! _Protect me! Help me! Stop the car! Stop the car! Stop the car! STOP THE CAR!"_

But he didn't slow, didn't say another word. He just drove while she screamed, while she clawed at the plastic barrier until her fingers bled, while she pleaded with him desperately.

"Please!" She bayed blaringly when her panic had robbed all other words from her throat. "Please! Please! Please! _Please! Please! PLEASE!"_

The car was slowing. A destination was being reached.

"PLEASSSSEEEEE!" She screamed as loud as she could, her eyes scrunched tight, her hands over her ears, childlike, hoping that it would all go away. "PLEASSSEEEEEE!"

The car stopped.

Christine was still screaming blindly when her passenger door opened and she felt a hand on her wrist. Her howls stopped immediately and she turned to him with a kind of hopeless whimper, noticing absently that they were in a large, abandoned parking lot.

"Please," she whispered to him, her face tear streaked, her breath coming out in gulping gasps. "_Please…"_

The officer studied her for a moment with sad eyes. His face was young, tanned, round and healthy, but he had prematurely lined forehead and his eyes were old. "Listen to me," he said, his voice quiet and rushed. "Please listen to me. I couldn't let you go even if I wanted to. You'd never get away. You have no idea how much power this man has. It's not just this precinct, it's all precincts. All laws. All courts. Everything. No matter what you'd do, he'd find you."

"What can I do?" she whimpered hopelessly.

"I can't tell you anything, except…" he paused. "This is the longest of all long shots, but as far as I know his political power only extends to the borders of this country. If you could get out of the country somehow, go somewhere far…you might be able to get away. Maybe." He stared at her. "God bless you," he whispered brokenly. "I'll never be able to forgive myself for this. I'll…I'll never forget you."

He moved away from the car and held the door open for her. Suddenly all of her adrenaline had disappeared, and her body felt weak and shaky, her arms and legs like dead weights.

Christine stumbled out of the police car and fell sideways to her knees and then, helplessly, folded over into a collapsed pile. Rough gravel scraped her cheek as she laid her head on the gray pavement and stared out of blurry eyes at a tilted sky. She couldn't stand, couldn't walk towards that fate. The summer rain slid under her thin shirt and plastered her hair to her head but she laid there, wet and shaking, waiting to be dragged back into the darkness.


	14. The Spiral Into Darkness

**AN: As usual, thank you so much to everyone who is reviewing, they make my day and keep me going! I'm sending love your way, can you feel it? Internet love should be washing over you just about now.**

**And (drumroll please), and extra special thanks to my brand-spankin' new beta, TouchingTrusting! She's absolutely amazing and has helped me so much. And thank you so much to everyone who offered their services, I'm so glad that there were people willing to help me with this.**

**Please read and review!**

**Onward we march!**

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**Chapter Fourteen: The Spiral into Darkness**

A black car rolled into the parking lot. Christine watched it with an almost numb detachment from where she laid; it rolled on the sideways pavement underneath the tilted summer sky and stopped not far from her. The smooth sound of a door opening and closing told her patently disinterested brain that someone had gotten out.

The police car was long gone, having squealed away so fast it left the smell of burning rubber and fear behind.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel and stopped near her head. Christine stared at the skewed sky unblinkingly, rain dripping into her eyes.

A voice sounded in her ear, so close. "Get up," the voice was a hiss, and she was almost surprised to hear that it was female.

She didn't move.

The voice moved in closer. "Get up or I will hurt you. Move. Now."

Christine's pale lips almost twitched into the mockery of a smile, but she didn't move.

The voice sighed and a face leaned over hers, nearly jerking Christine out of her stasis. The hard lined features were familiar; it was the woman from that night, the one who held the gun. This time Christine almost laughed. One of the kidnappers, here to kidnap her again. Round and round in a circle.

'_Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies…'_

Strong arms hooked bracingly under her armpits and Christine felt her body half lifted off of the ground. Her shoes scrapped the ground with a dull scuffing sound as she was dragged toward the black car.

'_Ashes, ashes …'_

The woman dropped her, hard, but Christine's dead muscles didn't let her catch herself and as her body fell her head connected crackingly with the pavement. The woman seemed not to notice and opened the back passenger door. "In," she said, her voice supremely unemotional.

Christine stared at the tilted underneath of the car, at the dirty wheels and snakelike pipes, and felt nothing.

'_Ashes, ashes…'_

"In!" The woman insisted, the toe of her boot nudging Christine jarringly in the side. "Now, damnit."

"Lina!" a familiar voice admonished, and Christine felt his presence above her, and his captivating, commanding voice whisper softly, "Get in the car, Christine. Please."

Despite herself Christine awkwardly moved her limp muscles to crane her neck toward his sound. He was leaning across the empty seat in the car and had one long, gloved hand held out to her, those irrepressibly skeletal fingers stretched beseechingly toward her dirty, wasted figure. He asked her again, and through half closed eyes she could see the dim glow of yellow behind the dark mask.

"Please Christine, do not make this harder for yourself than it already is. Get in the car." The voice wrapped around her aching head like liquid peace, promising rest and empty forgetfulness if she just _gave in._

"Christine," his voice was barely a whisper. "Don't break, Christine."

Painfully, pitifully, Christine pushed her shaking muscles into a slow movement and found her way to her hands and knees, which were scraped and dirtied, her limp clothes heavily wet. Helped in part by the strange somber woman but not touching Erik in any way, she clamored unsteadily into the small dark interior of the car.

The door closed behind her.

'_We all fall down.'_

The car pulled out of the driveway in a smooth, unhurried motion, and curved through dirty streets made gray in the still falling rain.

Christine leaned against the window, watching as the rain streaked winding silver rivers that seemed so close to her but did not touch. Unconsciously she placed her hand against the cool glass, trying to touch those wet lace-worked patterns; she traced them with a fingertip, wondering where they ended, how long they would last before blurring or melding with other raindrops to create some new river.

She focused on the window so she would not have to focus on him.

He sat on the other side of the wide backseat, his yellow eyes fixed on her, his long gloved hands still and calm in his lap. He seemed to be waiting for her to speak.

After a long time of watching the rain, she realized that the car would not stop until they had spoken; here there was no room for her to run to, no way to get out of the conversation that he obviously needed to have. Finally Christine closed her eyes and stared blankly into the darkness of her eyelids, feeling utterly dead inside.

"Why?" she whispered through cracked lips, and he breathed in quietly, seemingly satisfied that she had spoken.

"Do you understand, now?" He questioned, and despite herself Christine opened her eyes and looked at him. He sat so still, the very angle of his body intense, his presence oddly unreal. The mask, so impassive and strangely mocking in its fake features, made him seem inhuman, like a dark creature out of a fairy tale.

His voice, so soft, the liquid beauty and melody that lingered hypnotically in the air and seemed to resound in her soul like the promise of hope, made him seem like an angel.

Christine shook her head, her previously dead emotions rising once again to the surface with the sound of that voice.

"What do you mean?" she asked achingly, her head pounding, so tired. "I don't understand…anything," her voice trailed off into a near whisper as she faced those golden eyes beseechingly. "If you care about me, why put me through this hell? Why let me escape only to snatch me up again? Why give me that hope only to prove to me that it was false? You've taken everything from me, everything…" Anger was rising in her mind as she faced him, anger that had been long suppressed by hope and fear. He sat so still, just watching her, and she was seized by the sudden impulse to grab him by the lapels of his dark suit and shake him violently. "Why? Is this all a game to you? Do you like torturing me? Do you?"

"Of course not," his voice cut through her anger, soothing it, dissipating it against her will. She sat back against the seat and stared at the dark, opaque glass paneling that separated them from the driver. "This was not _torture_," he spat the word as if it were repugnant to him. "I didn't do this for me. This was all for you. For your own good. Consider it a necessary evil, my dear. It had to be done, can't you see that?"

He acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and his golden eyes seemed surprised that she did not understand it right away. Christine stared at him blankly for a few moments.

"What the hell are you talking about?" She asked wearily.

He turned his body so that he was fully facing her; his hand drifted to the empty seat space between them, close to her knee but not touching. "As long as you dreamt of escape, as long as you _believed_ in the possibility of escape, you would never be able to relax. You would always be looking for a way out; you would always think that you could go back to your life before if you could just get away. Aren't I right? You were consumed by the thought of escape; its hope was probably the only thing that kept you functional during those first few days."

"Why did you take it _away from me?"_ Christine nearly screamed. "Why couldn't I keep it?"

"It was destroying you!" He insisted quietly, fervently. "As long as you focused on escape your life with me would never be peaceful, never be real! How could you concentrate on your music, on your _voice_, when your mind was so preoccupied? How could you ever see me as a human being and not as a means to an end? Would you ever speak to me without an agenda? Would you ever understand that what I said was true, that I am not some lunatic locked away in a strange house but someone who is real and important in the world, someone who makes decisions that affect others, someone who is _alive?_" He leaned toward her, his eyes fierce, and Christine leaned back unconsciously. "I did this for _you_ Christine, for _you_…for us. I did it so that if you spoke to me, if you knew me, you…" he paused, as if he wanted to say something grand and far fetched yet thought better of it. Instead he leaned back into his seat and his voice grew calmer. "I told you that I would let you go. That still holds true. But I hope that now you won't think about premature escape and you can see me as a person, and that when I do release you...you will come back. Not because you are afraid, but because you know me, because you want to. Because I am more than _this_," he gestured bitterly at himself, and Christine felt there was some deeper meaning at that action that she did not see. "Do you understand, Christine? Can you understand?"

"I don't know," she whispered brokenly, though she felt that she did. "When can I go?"

He shook his head at her, solemn once again. "That I can not tell you, or you would think only of that date. Right now know that we have much time left together, and there are important things to be done. Your voice is very important to me; it could be breathtaking…with much work. I would like to teach you…that is why you are really here, you know. So that you can relax….and I can teach you."

Christine refrained from snorting derisively. _Relax?_

Stifling the insane impulse to laugh, she faced him and squared her shoulders as if to enter a fight. "And what if I don't?"

He seemed puzzled, his golden eyes staring at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"

Christine blurted out her words without thinking; her head was filled with overwhelming, conflicting emotions that had started to slowly push reason to the side. "What if I don't sing for you? What if I don't _get to know you?_ What if I fight this? This is _my life. _What if I chose to not accept this…this…imprisonment, what if I fight you and all of your power and everything you stand for? What if I refuse to let you dictate my life like this?"

He was silent for a moment as he stared at his hands. "Would you?" he said softly. "I know you so well, Christine, I've watched you for so long. I don't think that you would. I don't think that you could hate so much." His eyes flickered upwards to catch hers, and they were pleading and strangely beautiful.

"Maybe," she whispered, suddenly unsure.

Slowly and with unyielding grace, Erik raised one gloved hand and brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. "If you did," he whispered softly, gently, tracing with his eyes the curve of her jaw, her mouth and nose, her forehead with unsurpassed tenderness and emotion. "If you did I would never let you go."

His words belied the soft look in his eyes and she jerked back suddenly, her eyes wide. He continued to look at her in that slightly desperate, adoring way he had, but his voice had an edge.

"I can not lose you," he murmured, keeping his hand stretched imploringly toward her face but not touching. "I can not go back to the way my life was, alone, after knowing you. Should you reject me completely I would die inside, but I could not let you go. Even your hatred, even your indifference, is better than not having you at all. I would not prefer that ending," his voice was sad, low. "But it is your choice, my dear. You underestimate how much I need you. You are," he stared at her for a moment, apparently at a loss for words. "My air," he finished quietly.

As if on cue the car slowed to a rolling stop and he turned his eyes from her to stare out the window. "We are home," he said, and despite herself Christine turned to see the derelict apartment complex that she had run away from, what seemed like so long ago.

"Home," she traced the words with her lips but didn't make a sound, and inside she felt more hopeless than she ever had before.

Christine felt the car rock gently as he got out, and a few moments later her door swung smoothly open and he stood there before her. Tentatively he unfurled one long gloved hand, and his feral eyes pleaded with her to take it, to not initiate that ultimate rejection. She stared at his fingers, bonelike yet curiously graceful, as the man himself, and felt the utter understanding of her situation crash down on top of her.

She was never going to get away. Even if she fought, even if she screamed, even if she rejected him a thousand times it would only increase his hold on her, like a snake slowly constricting. As she fought to escape him he would fight to keep her, and he would never, ever let go.

As the young policeman with sad eyes told her, there was no escape, nowhere she could run. Even if she was good, even if she befriended him, she had no reason to know that his obsessive love wouldn't cause him to break his word and keep her locked away with him until the end of time.

And Christine knew with every fiber of her being that she could not be a prisoner. She couldn't ever accept that fate.

Slowly her eyes moved from his hand to his face, and her hand, as if of its own volition, came to meet his. His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around hers, an unconscious gesture of ownership as he helped her out of the car and toward his – their- 'home.'

Christine knew then, as she followed his dark figure across the pavement in the still falling rain, that there was no hope, no way out.

It was at that moment she knew she had to kill him.


	15. June Resolves

**To my reviewers: You guys are awesome! I can't even thank you enough.**

**As usual, a huge thanks and a hug for my beta, TouchingTrusting, who is very patient with me and my stupid little errors, and my stoic dislike of commas, and who leaves lovely little notes in blue when I do something right. It's so nice to bounce ideas off someone!**

**Please read and review, loves.**

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**Chapter Fifteen: June Resolves**

Deciding to do something as drastic and mind shattering as taking someone's life was one thing, but actually doing it was another.

'_How could I commit such an atrocity?' _Christine wondered as she ate alone at the small table. Her hand shook slightly as she tried to maneuver her fork, and water sloshed in her glass as she drank it. She felt like she had no control over her body; her muscles seized up spasmodically, small shaking trembles of weariness and anxiety. '_Could I really? Is it truly the only way?'_

He walked into the room just as she finished eating, and as her eyes caught sight of his thin, wasted figure, Christine wished with all of her heart that there was another way.

He began to talk to her, so earnestly, his eyes alight, and she knew with complete certainty that there was not.

"You are shaking," he stated as he folded his long body into one of the small hard-backed chairs. "You need to sleep. Your mind and body are exhausted."

Christine ran a hand through her slick, filthy hair. "I need a shower," she murmured, so weary that she almost didn't know what she was saying.

He nodded. "Sleep and a shower," that soothing voice crooned. "Then you will feel better. Then you will be yourself again." Her eyes drifted closed even at the table, her exhaustion suddenly overwhelming. She felt him brush a lock of hair away from her face. "Then we can begin," he whispered. "Oh, _Christine…"_

When she woke she was back in her dark room, and she was thirsty, but her body no longer shook, and her mind was clear.

She knew what she had to do.

Christine pushed the thought out of her mind and slid out of the large bed to pad across the cool floor, her socks making no sound on the polished wood. She would think about that later. Now she needed to get clean, to feel human again, to calm her nerves and settle her mind. Later, later, after this respite, after she rested…later she would think about murder.

The bathroom looked glorious when bathed in soft light, the bathtub welcoming and deep, the veined marble sink richly set and gleaming, the mirror bright. It was the only mirror that she had seen in the house, the first time she had seen her reflection in what felt like ages. As she faced it the thin, sallow skinned dirty girl stared back, and Christine barely recognized herself.

She realized with a sudden shock that she hadn't properly gone to the bathroom in days; the sheer mental shock had pushed the idea out of her head completely. She blushed deeply, painfully, when she realized that though her mind had spiraled out of control and forgotten itself, her body had not and had calmly continued with its normal functions.

'_Oh God, I have to get out of these clothes, I have to get clean!'_ Christine felt utterly disgusted with herself. Her stiff clothes smelled, itched, and when she locked the door they were cast aside with only a hint of nervousness. The need to be clean overrode any objections her paranoid mind could come up with, and she twisted the taps in the bath – no longer dry since she had shown herself that first time- until it was filled with warm water.

She didn't linger in the bath, though. She attacked her hair with sweet smelling shampoo, dunked her head under water, and immediately started on her body. Christine scrubbed with a loofa until she almost bled; she felt like the dirt was somehow ingrained into her, staining her, like by cleaning her body she could somehow cleanse herself of all that had happened and all that she was planning to do. She wanted to feel human again, real again…not like a monster that was planning someone else's death.

_'Stop it!' _she chided herself as she stepped from the bath and wrapped a towel around her thin frame. _'Don't think about it now, don't think about it.'_

Her hand went up to her throat in a gesture of agitation and she felt for the first time how sharply her collarbone protruded, how the bones of her chest stood out. She looked once again in the mirror and saw clearly the deep shadows under her eyes, her hollow cheeks, and had to bite back tears.

Christine stared at herself in a lost way for a long time, then wrapped a robe around herself and made her way to the wardrobe.

It was filled with clothes, stuffed to almost overflowing with every type of clothing she could ever need: pants, skirts, summer dresses, exquisitely fancy dresses, tank tops, t-shirts, sweaters, coats. Below the racks were drawers with undergarments, socks, hats, purses, even delicate, expensive looking jewelry. She stared at everything for a moment, open mouthed, and the familiar rush of hot, almost blinding anger overwhelmed her.

Christine wanted to destroy those clothes, those lovely dresses and sparkling jewelry. _'I won't be dressed up like some doll!' _She thought, fuming. '_I won't be some pretty thing that he can control.'_ Hands shaking, she slammed the drawers shut, resisting the urge to throw those shining necklaces and earrings into the garbage.

Almost as suddenly as it had come, the flood of anger passed and Christine sat down at the edge of the bed, exhausted. _'He wants to mold me into something I'm not,' _she thought bitterly. _'Some beautiful woman who will belong to him and will sing with him and keep him company. How selfish! And this selfish person has destroyed my life…what was left of it.'_ She ran a hand through her damp hair, agitated. _'And yet…and yet…he thought he was helping me. He saw how lonely I was, how lonely I am. That life wasn't perfect, God sometimes it was terrible, and I was so alone…but it was still _my_ life. I made my decisions. And there was maybe someone who would have cared for me.'_

For the first time in days her thoughts drifted to Raoul, who she suddenly missed with a sharp ache. Would he realize that she was gone? Would he look for her? Would he care?

'_This is why I have to get out of here,'_ Christine thought with new resolve. _'This is why I have to fight. I am not a doll, not a prize, not something to be locked away. I will not be controlled. And he…he has taken all of my other options from me.'_

He had stripped away her hope. Now all that was left was resolution.

Christine just hoped that it would be enough.

With a deep, steadying breath she rose and dressed herself in the most plain long sleeved shirt and slacks available, noting almost absentmindedly how frigid the apartment was, though it didn't have the artificial feel of air conditioning. It was as if his mere presence was enough to strip away the warmth of summer.

Shaking her head of the disquieting thought, Christine ran her fingers through her damp hair and summoned her courage before making her way to the door and opening it quickly.

He wasn't there.

Unconsciously she let out a slow sigh of relief, the knot in her chest unwinding, though it almost immediately began to wind again. Where was he, if he was not here?

She was still standing there, hesitating and unsure at the prospect of being alone, when the soft strains of the violin reached her ears. It sounded so far away, almost as it did that day at the graveyard so long ago, though this time she knew who played, and where.

Almost without thinking Christine followed the sound of the haunting music; her feet took her without permission through the far door and into what she deemed the music room. He wasn't there, but she entered anyway, her eyes fixed on the closed door from which the music emanated. The music rose in volume, the violin wailing, anguished, and she felt tears rise into her eyes. Who was this man who could create such beauty out of sadness and yet act so sociopathically? Who was he, really? For the first time she remembered her night music, how it had comforted her and sustained her when she had almost nothing left, and felt the fear dissolve into recognition and, deep in her chest, the dull ache of guilt. He had once created something lovely for her. He had once _saved _her. And despite all of his crimes he still created beauty and when he did, she listened. Despite everything, that pure and painful sound still soothed something within her, and she missed her blind trust in the angel who made music in her dreams. How could she destroy that?

The sound swirled around her head like a storm. Christine stood with her face buried in her hands, alone and barefoot in the midst of a sea of instruments, and cried until the music stopped.

Then the door of the unknown room was flung open, and he stood there. The violin hung limply from one long white hand, the bow from the other; his breathing was ragged, the mask slightly lopsided as if he had sensed her outside his door and flung it on in a hurry. His feral yellow eyes stared at her wet face wonderingly.

He stepped into the room, never taking his eyes off of her, and placed the violin and bow into their casing with one fluid motion. "Why do you cry?" He asked, approaching her slowly, as if not to spook her.

Christine took a heaving breath. "I just…that was beautiful. Really, it was. But it hurt." She finished in a whisper, murmuring the words almost unconsciously. "It made me think about things that I would rather forget."

"My music has a tendency to do that," he said, his voice wry. He was standing very near to her, and Christine had to tilt her head back to look at his eyes.

"You wrote that?"

"Could you not tell?"

She stared at him a moment longer. "Yes," she said, dropping her eyes to stare at the bottom of his dark pants, at his polished shoes. "Yes, I suppose I could."

She felt his gaze on her face, but she didn't raise her head, and finally he sighed and gestured toward the sitting room. "Why don't we talk, Christine? After all, it is your music that interests me, not mine, and we have much to discuss."

She paused, fidgeting. "What is in that room, Erik?" She asked, aware only after she had spoken that she used his name.

He hesitated. "That is my bedroom," he said finally. "Though I don't sleep very often. Perhaps one day I will show it to you, for it is rather interesting, but not now, I don't think. No, you would not like to see it now."

Christine didn't respond; she turned and left the room and he followed close at her heels, like a shadow, those strange eyes never leaving her. She surveyed the sitting room and chose a squat, squashy black leather chair, pulling her knees up to her chest to make herself as small as possible and disappear into it. He reclined rather elegantly on the couch, his movements more graceful and relaxed than they had been. Christine studied his body language through stricken eyes; she knew he believed that he had proven his point, and that now that she was clean and secure all would be well. He believed.

She did not.

"I have hopes for your future, Christine, great hopes," he said her name carefully, molding each syllable into beauty, as if it were something to be treasured. "It will take time to make your voice truly a sound of the angels. I will have to totally break down all of the mediocre rules that you have been taught; they are only keeping you chained down. We will have to start from scratch." He was speaking almost to himself, his eyes focused on some faraway point. "Yes, we will have to redo everything. We should have almost enough time."

Christine didn't know how to interrupt, to point out that, thank you very much for the generous offer, you genius-tiptoeing-across-the-line-into-madness, but no, singing was not an option. Not at all. To sing would be to give in, to accept fate.

He had trailed off and was staring into the distance with unusual intensity, and the words flew out of her mouth before she even knew that she wanted to say them. "Will you sing for me?"

Christine didn't know why, but she needed to hear that dream voice in person, just once. She wanted to touch that beauty while she was awake; she wanted to forget about her guilt and desperation for one sane moment before this strange dream fell apart.

And perhaps some part of her wanted to make him happy, just for a little while. Just for then.

His eyes widened under the mask and she could tell he was pleased. "Of course," he said graciously, standing once again and gesturing toward the music room. "What would you like me to sing?"

"Something that you wrote," Christine said immediately. "Something beautiful, like the song left at the graveyard. Something that makes you feel."

"So often my music feels too much," he murmured as he led her to the piano. "But I'm sure that I have something suitable."

He sat down at the piano bench and unfolded his long hands onto the keys, his body still and straight and dark, like negative space. Christine sat down on the floor a few feet behind him, like a child, and tried to soothe her scattered thoughts.

His hands flowed over the keys; the music started, but it wasn't until he began to sing that she knew she had made a terrible mistake.

Before his voice had always come to her in her sleep, through means that she didn't understand; it was always hazy, far, hopelessly unreachable, like a voice out of heaven. But here it was tangible, real; he was feet away from her, so wasted and disturbed but capable of producing that heavenly sound.

'_I should not have asked this!'_ Christine thought. It was like looking into the sun, like coming too near to heaven or heat and being burned, like waxen wings dripping off. She felt her resolution crumbling inside of her as the sound swelled in her ears, rich and pure and _God she just wanted to wrap that voice around her and never leave._

Heart in her throat, Christine wrenched herself away, covered her ears and ran until she was again in her room and out of earshot.

Erik, so absorbed in his music, which was a love song, a wishful song, never noticed her leave.

Once in her room Christine threw herself on the bed and cried, huge gulping sobs so different from the terrified tears that she had shed in the past days. She cried for everything; she cried for her situation, for her lost chances, for her dark future. She cried for her mother and father, for her once-family that was gone. She cried for him, for Erik, who loved her so much that he had taken her away from everything; for the man who controlled everything but was not alive enough to enjoy it, who sang like the angels but hid himself away in a labyrinthine world that she did not understand. She cried for what she had to do, what she knew had to be done, for her weak resolution that would have crumbled had she listened to his angel's voice any more. She cried because she knew that had she had stayed in that room a moment longer she would have stayed forever; had she stayed in that room she would have lost her mind.

When she stopped crying she slept, and when she awoke the small clock by her bed said that it was two o'clock in the morning. The house was still. Now, now before she could think any more about it, before she could change her mind; now it had to be done.

Shaking and sweating, Christine got up and crossed the room, her footfalls silenced by thick socks. It was pitch dark but she was afraid to turn on a light so she groped in the blackness until her hand felt the same silver candlestick she had so desperately grabbed that first night. It seemed so long ago.

It was the only weapon she could find, and as she lifted it into her hands it felt as cool and as heavy as it did before. Christine stared at it gleaming dully in the darkness, her heart in her throat; she listened to the silence and knew that now was the time to do it. If she could.

But suddenly she wasn't so sure. Suddenly it seemed a horrible crime.


	16. The Darkest Hour

**Wow, I'm almost at the 100 review mark, I've never passed into the triple digits before! Thank you so much everyone, and keep 'em coming!**

**And, as always, thank you TouchingTrusting for being great.**

**Watch out, ye landlubbers, there be storms ahead! This is a 'T' rated fic, as I don't believe anything I write is _too _excessive, but be warned that there is attempted murder and possibly disturbing images below. Have fun!**

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**Chapter Sixteen: The Darkest Hour**

Was it horrible? Was it necessary?

'_Can I really destroy a life?'_

Something inside of her twisted and broke.

_'Shut up!'_ Christine screamed inside her head. _'It's his fault, he's making me do this. I'm a prisoner damnit! I need to do this! I need to! I need to!'_

She repeated it in her head until she believed it, and left the room on silent feet, heavy silver in her hand. The sitting room was swallowed in darkness that was so thick even her adjusted eyes could barely see; silence smothered her ears like heavy pressure, faltering her sense of balance and making her own thoughts too loud to stand. She crossed into the music room; the lifeless instruments stared at her hollowly, weary sentinels that met her presence with hostility. The silver was suddenly hot in her hand, her palms slick with sweat, and it seemed so clumsy, so heavy, pulling her down to the floor.

And then she was in front of that door, that always closed door, and Christine felt her hand reach out and push it open. It swung wide easily, a fact which surprised her and also did not. He slept so little, it was his house, and she showed so much fear. Why would he lock his door, when he slept only when she slept, when she wouldn't dare cross the empty space to actually come looking for him if she awoke? He offered no comfort for any problem.

And he could not have anticipated this.

His room seemed even darker than the others, and she had to stand in the open doorway for a moment for her eyes to adjust to the further blackness. Her heart thudded in her ears so loudly she was afraid that he would hear it and awaken. But when her eyes finally adjusted well enough for her to survey the room they fell upon the large, six sided object in the center of the raised dais and her loudly beating heart nearly stopped.

There was a corpse in a coffin!

Christine stepped back instinctively, horrified at the sight of a dead body. Her eyes, almost by providence, caught sight of one pallid hand, fingers clasped around the nearly invisible black mask only made visible by the contrast of white skin. She had one last fleeting moment of ignorance before understanding hit her so hard that she staggered and nearly threw up.

_'Oh God, oh God, it's not dead, it's him; it's his face!'_

Christine lurched forward, her hands on her knees, trying to control her ragged breathing and her gag reflex. She had to stay silent, but oh God, how could anyone look that that and not be decomposing! Christine clasped a hand to her mouth, feeling bile rise into her throat. '_He's alive!' _She thought frantically, as if trying to convince herself. '_This doesn't change anything! He's alive…but he looks dead.'_

A strange thought rose to the surface, surprising and rather horrifying in its bitterness. _'He looks dead and soon he is going to be dead.'_

Christine raised her eyes and bit her lip until she tasted blood. _'I can't do this,'_ she thought desperately. '_What am I supposed to do?'_

She stood for a long time in the crushingly silent room and tried to control her crazed emotions. Sweat poured off her like she had run for miles; she shook and her skin was hot like a high fever. Christine licked dry lips and slowly forced herself to stand straight. Jerkily, her body moving as if it were not her own, she felt her feet cross the dark space to in horrified wonder near that death's face.

It was the worst thing she had ever seen, though it seemed wrong to call it a deformity; Christine had always connected that word with images of Elephant man-like lumps, misplaced features, scars and puckered flesh. But this face was nothing that she had ever seen; it did not look so much disfigured as putrefied. Bile rose in her throat as she studied him. The thick black hair she had seen was obviously a wig; now all she could see were dark clumped pieces scattered across translucent gray skin pulled taut against the skull, with a network of vaguely pulsing blue veins running underneath the surface. The flesh sunk into the eye cavities so deep that they seemed empty holes in the darkness, the lips were pale and shriveled, and the nose non-existent, just one dark gap in the center of the dead face. It looked as a man does when he has died and been left exposed to the elements for weeks; how he looks after the blowflies and maggots have come and gone, after nature has sucked away everything resembling life except for bone and that final withered shred of skin. It was a face out of nightmares, out of horror movies, and in Christine's brain revulsion and pity rose and clashed and fought for dominance.

Suddenly everything made sense: why he was so isolated, why even with all of his power he still hid away, why his unearthly and beautiful voice was unknown to the world, why he felt that the only way to love someone was to take them.

'_Because any other way they would run,'_ Christine thought with immeasurable pity and sadness even while she closed her eyes so she would not have to look at him and clapped her hand to her throat so that she would not vomit. _'Because in his mind, there was no other way.'_

Did this change anything?

A war raged in her mind. Some part of Christine acknowledged that it did, that in her mind pity had somehow made him more human. Part of her, the childlike part that hid deep within her, had the strong, primitive reaction that he was a monster and now more frightening than ever, something that she wanted to dive under the covers to escape. Sympathy told her that he was just a man, just a sad man, and how much of a bastard was she to be horrified of him just because of how he looked, and to be thinking of taking his life when he had obviously already suffered so much?

Christine raised her eyes and looked at that withered face again, and decided that no, it didn't change anything. She was still a prisoner, she still had to get free, and she still had no other choice.

Maybe…maybe she'd be putting him out of his misery. Maybe this was the best course of action.

'_No other choice.'_

She raised the candlestick over her head and held it there for a long moment. '_I'm so sorry!'_ she screamed inside her head, tears pouring down her face. '_I'm so sorry, God forgive me, God forgive me…'_

Christine closed her eyes and brought it down hard, the silver blurring in the air, an almost tangible sound in the silence. It hit something hard and stopped, but she knew it was wrong, all wrong, and her eyes flew open to see his eyes, more feral and frightening than ever, staring out of that dead face.

His hand hovered above his head, long fingers wrapped around the candlestick. He stared at her, and Christine thought she was going to die.

'_He's going to kill me…and I deserve it.'_

But she couldn't stand there and look death in the face any longer.

Christine dropped the candlestick and bolted out the door, though she knew that it would never be fast enough. Her plan had failed, and suddenly her situation had gotten a hundred times worse.

Her feet took her out of his presence and wildly past couches and tables that couldn't be seen in the heavy darkness; she tripped and went sprawling but quickly righted herself and kept moving, pausing at the door of her room. Instead of opening it she pressed her forehead to the heavy oak and cried, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her mouth contorted in agony so that only small whimpers escaped. There was no use hiding in that room, there would be no sanctuary there. She saw her life suddenly as if it was at the end of a long path, and this is where that path had led her: to that very moment, awaiting death at the hands of the madman she had tried to kill. Christine cried into the door, pressing her face and hands into the wood as if she wanted to sink into it and disappear. How had she gotten to this point? Why had life led her here? Why, why, what was the purpose?

"I am going to die without purpose," she sobbed, curling her fists into the oak paneling as if trying to find a handhold at the edge of a cliff. "Dad, dad, help me, I don't want to die like this!"

The lights flickered on and Christine's breath hitched, her eyes widening in glazed terror. Slowly and without changing her cowering position at the door, she turned her head and craned her head to see the other side of the room, suddenly so harshly bright.

He staggered into her line of sight a moment later, his craven figure hunched and bent as he moved like a disjointed puppet: jerkily, stumblingly. The candlestick was in his hand, and his bent head stared at it with disbelieving horror.

Finally those bizarre yellow eyes moved slowly upward to lock on hers, and they looked stranger and madder than ever. She flinched, waiting to see that face, but the black mask was once again firmly in place, as if it had never left the skin, as if she had never seen that rotting corpse's head. But she had, and the image wouldn't leave her head; it was burning into her retinas, superimposed over the black leather, staring at her desperately.

"You tried to kill me," he said slowly, his voice suddenly thin and unbeautiful. He sounded so shocked, and Christine choked back a sob at the disbelief in his voice.

"You tried to kill me," he repeated again, with incredulity. Those eyes burned into hers. "You tried to _kill _me. How could you…do you hate me that much…_Christine…"_

"I…"

"Do you hate me more now?" He asked, his voice growing louder and losing its disbelieving tone, being shriller and more maniacal. "Do you hate me more because you failed, because now you know what is behind the mask?" He took a step toward her and she tried to melt into the door, frozen in horror. "What am I saying, of course you do. How could you not? You already thought I was a monster, and now…now you have proof! Did that soothe your conscience, little one?" He was coming closer as his voice rose in pitch. "Did you feel better about murder once you knew that you were not really killing a human being? Did it make you feel like the hero, slaying the beast, killing the dead? DID IT?"

"I…I…" Christine was sobbing so hard she was unable to form words.

"DID IT? _DID IT_?" He was nearly at her, his height imposing, his voice an explosion.

"No," she tried to gasp out, but she could barely breathe for crying. "No, no, that's not what I wanted…"

"I told you!" He roared. "I told you I would let you go! Why didn't you believe me? Why this? You've ruined everything, Christine, everything, when I would have given you anything! You tried to destroy me and in doing so you've hurt yourself in the worst possible way. You saw my face, you saw it, and now that image will never leave you be; it will haunt you forever! Oh, if only you had been successful in your attempt!"

He turned his head away from her and began to cry, huge gasping sobs that left his whole body shaking and his breathing harsh. She saw him claw suddenly at the mask and then remove it, still looking resolutely away from her, and his breathing eased.

They stood like that for a few moments but his cries did not cease; if anything they seemed to get more violent and unbearable.

Without even fully realizing that she was doing it Christine reached out one arm to touch his shoulder, desperate to stop this mad grief, this frenzy of despair, desperate to make amends. But he flinched at her contact and swung on her, snarling, that hideous face inches from her own. His golden eyes blazed with something close to insanity; tears still ran down those sunken cheeks and into the crater which should have been a nose. Veins pulsed in horrible rhythm across his forehead. His almost-lips were curled into a feral snarl, teeth broken and jagged within the dark hole of his mouth. Christine gasped and pressed against the door, trying to put as much space between as possible between her and death.

"What were you trying to do, little girl, comfort me?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Comfort the monster?" Suddenly he lunged and caught her hands, bringing them up to his face. She twisted them, desperate to wrench them away before they touched that gray membrane of flesh, but he held on like a vice and pulled her toward him. "You think I'm a monster!" He roared.

"Let me go!" Christine screamed, pulling at her arms with all of her strength. "Let me go, please let me go!"

"You think I'm a monster! You think I'm a monster!" He repeated, his voice frenzied. "A monster that deserves to die. How could I be so bad that it would cause someone as sweet and as innocent and as _wonderful_ as you to try and kill me? Am I such a monster to be denied even love? I love you, Christine, I love you!" He forced her hands onto his face and her fingers felt the too smooth, almost slick feel of his skin that conjured thoughts of things dead and rotting, and bile rose in her throat, thick and bitter. "Look at me! I may be a monster but I am alive! I am alive!" He dropped her hands from his face and pressed them against his chest, where she could feel his heart weakly fluttering. "I'm alive," he whispered. "I live in this shell of a body. I've stayed alive for so many reasons but I've never _lived_…I live now…for you." He stared at her with those almost-lovely eyes in that dead face. "How could you?" he whispered. "I thought that you understood."

Christine looked at him with utter grief, her hands still pressed against his chest to feel its soft beating. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just can't…I just wanted…I'm _sorry_. I thought…but I _couldn't_…oh God…forgive me…"

"I know what you thought, and I know your reasons." He seemed suddenly in complete composure, but she could still see tears in those eyes and the hear the quiet shaking of his words. Slowly he pulled away from her and turned his back. His hands reached upwards smoothly to his skull and Christine knew that the mask was back in place. "You felt that you needed to do this but you did not consider all of the consequences, all that you would lose. All that you would never be without me. I offered you the world. I offer it to you still, though I understand if you do not take it. But you cannot escape your fate…with me." He bent his head, and his long hands shook ever so slightly at his sides before he whispered cryptic words laced with a meaning that Christine did not fully understand. "Make up your mind, Christine. Make up your mind about who you want to be."


	17. Aftermath

**Thanks as usual to all of my reviewers:** The Little Mademoiselle, obsessedbyerik, MJ MOD, Mirrordjyn, LittleLottexoxEriksTrueAngel, Ceinwyn, jtbwriter, WTFWonder (who I hope will be pleased with the not-so-darkness in this chapter), and anyone else who I did not mention. Thank you.

Do I have to even tell you how great TouchingTrusting is? Man, I'm running out of compliments.

**Please Read and Review!**

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**Chapter Seventeen: Aftermath**

When he finished speaking he walked stiffly away without looking at her, and a few moments later she heard his door slam in a show of almost petulant anger.

Shaking slightly, Christine sank to the floor, her face in her hands. Oh God, how had everything gotten so _wrong?_ How was there any coming back from this point? She had failed, oh she had failed miserably, and now there would be no more chances. She had ruined everything, all of her chances for freedom; her only chance now was to wait and hope that he still kept his promise, that if she spoke to him and got to know him that he would one day let her go.

'_But how?' _Christine thought desperately as she pushed her hair out of her eyes to stare after him. '_How could I possibly gain his trust now, after all of this? How would he ever believe me, ever forgive me? I've screwed everything up so much I don't know if there is any coming back from it.'_

Soft, melancholy music reached her ears, as far away as if it was a dream, and it struck some deep chord within Christine, calming her and focusing her shaken thoughts. Slowly she stood up and stepped inside her room, gently closing the door behind her, and didn't emerge for hours. They both needed time to think, time to plan…time to heal.

When the door opened again she had slept and bathed and changed into a soft warm sweater. So often she had to tell herself that it was June, not January, and that outside a sun still shone. In that house it was always twilight winter, that kind of timeless haze of the north where the sun never quite peeks over the mountains and the days blend together without the balance of an internal clock.

Hunger pains once again gnawed at her insides and, after scanning the rooms for any sign of his presence, she sat down to the waiting cold cucumber soup and bread with a small breath of thanks. At least he was still feeding her.

She finished eating, but he still did not appear.

Nervousness slowly being quelled by boredom, Christine wandered through the house, searching not for him but for occupation. She paused in the music room, briefly entranced by the shadowed grand piano which her clumsy fingers still remembered how to play, but shook her head and kept moving. Beyond the music room lay the library, that strange and vast collection of books, and she stopped at the threshold to once again stare at its labyrinthine space in awe. Feet sinking into the thick carpet, she approached the first wall and let her fingers graze the titles. Here, closer to these faded volumes the smell of paper and leather and must prevailed and overlapped that pervading dead smell of him and the rest of his house.

She wandered deeper into the stacks, intently reading each title, sometimes pulling one off of its shelf to flip through it briefly. She rounded a corner, then another, losing her thoughts to the dreams that surrounded her. Books had always taken her mind to better places, but here they represented something more: freedom. The one freedom she could have, the one way her mind could briefly escape from this cage. She walked, and wandered, until at one moment she turned around and realized that she could no longer see the door.

Claustrophobia suddenly tightened her throat as she walked quickly back the way she had come and peered down small hallways lined with books, but she couldn't find the exit.

"I'm lost in dreams," Christine whispered softly before she even knew that she had spoken. Her face cracked into a lopsided smile. "Isn't that how this whole thing started anyway?"

Suddenly a little bubble of hysterics burst within her and she began to laugh. Shaking, she gripped a wall-high bookshelf and she laughed and laughed until tears streamed down her face. It all seemed so terribly ridiculous in that moment, so surreal. "I'm trapped in my own metaphor," she gasped between breathless giggles. Her whole world seemed to crash around her ears. She sunk to her knees. "I tried to kill a man," she slowly became hysterical, her laughter more edged and violent. "I'm so stupid that I believed in dream music, that I thought it was an angel!" She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. "I'm so stupid! What a mess I'm in! What a horrible, horrible, stupid mess I'm in! It's my fault; I believed…I should have known. And he…he loves me! He loves an idiot!" Somewhere along the line her laughter had turned to tears, and she pounded her fists on the floor. "I'm so stupid! I'm so stupid!" she cried. "What a great person I am, I can't even survive on my own and I…I almost killed someone! I'm, oh God…" Suddenly her tears stopped as if a tap had turned off inside of her, like the door into someplace darker within her soul had briefly cracked open and then slammed closed when she noticed it. Christine stared at her hands, startled. "Oh God, I really am losing my mind," she whispered hoarsely. "What am I going to do?"

Carefully, gripping the bookshelves for support, she stood and walked along them, always keeping one hand to the wall. She walked, weak and tired, for several minutes until she finally turned a corner and saw the way out. Grabbing a book at random, she quickly left the room and fairly ran back to her bed, where she secluded herself until the last page had been turned.

Then she slept, woke hungry, and faced the forever daunting struggle of deciding whether or not to leave the relative safety and calm of her room. Sheer boredom and hunger finally drove her out, and she rationalized that he would probably not be there.

She was wrong

He wasn't obviously apparent at first, as she sat down to eat another prepared meal, but the nagging sense of his presence plagued her until she finished. As soon as she was done she turned her head slightly toward the sitting room and, as if by magic, he was sitting there as if it had not been an empty space a moment ago. Christine still wondered how he did these things, but was slowly becoming desensitized to the consistent strangeness, and felt no need to demand or question.

As if pulled by an invisible thread Christine rose and moved to sit near him. She curled into the thick dark chair near the couch as she had that terrible day, though this time there was not heavy weight of guilt or indecision, only supreme isolation. She felt that if she closed her eyes he would simply cease to be there, that she would open them to find herself alone. He was so still, so dark, featureless under the mask, yellow eyes unblinking; he seemed to absorb the light around him, negative space in a starched suit. Christine could not even see him breathe. She stared at him to reassure herself of his presence, resisting the urge to shake him or to touch his fragile heartbeat to know that he was really there. How could something alive be so still?

Christine stared at her hands, huddled as tight fists in her lap. The silence and his not-presence were suffocating. '_Speak!' _she willed him silently. '_Say something, anything! Tell me that I haven't ruined my own life! Tell me that this silence will not go on forever! I can't breathe! Talk! Talk to me!'_

The silence stretched on like a wall, an invisible barrier. She dug her nails into her palms, the stinging pain snapping her to her senses. She had stepped across a line and shattered his intensions, destroyed what he had hoped for. Though what he truly wanted could never be, she had to call a truce, had to break this silent battle that was being waged in the still air between them. Christine knew that she had to somehow undo what had been done, or she would never go free, never see the sky again or feel any air other than the stagnance of this cold apartment.

"Should I sing for you?" She gasped out, forcing the words into the air with effort, offering what she had sworn to never offer. He blinked and tilted his head at her like a bird, but still did not speak. "I mean, you said that was why I'm here. You're going to teach me, right? I'd like to become a better singer…if you want to help me." Her voice tapered off at the end as if it was absorbed by the air, and her words faded as quickly as they had appeared, leaving only that maddening, ringing silence.

Christine resisted the urge to throw her hands over her ears, as if the stillness was something she could drown out.

"If you wish."

Her head snapped up. He was still sitting there, looking at her unblinkingly, and for a moment she wondered whether he had spoken at all. But he stood, a fluid graceful moment, and turned his face to the music room.

"Now." His words were both a question and a command.

He waited for her to stand, and when she did he walked without looking back. Christine followed at a safe distance, her stomach tight with nerves and anticipation. Beyond the fear and the ache of regret in her stomach there was a small corner of her consciousness that was almost excited. This was the man who sang like a god, who burned her ears with beauty, and he was going to teach her to sing. To sing like him? Was it possible? He began to lead her through scales, and as her voice climbed higher Christine began to see the ramifications of his offer. If her voice could somehow become even a fraction as beautiful as his any job in the world of music would be open to her. She would be famous, revered, fulfilled…could such things actually happen? For a brief moment Christine saw a sweeping and glittering vision of her future, and understood why he believed that he was helping her, that he was the hero, that he was _saving her life._ He was offering to pull her from obscurity to reign in heaven.

Her voice broke and the music stopped abruptly, leaving her breathless.

'_But the price…'_ Christine thought as she stared at his back, his shoulders hunched briefly as he flicked through sheets of music. '_The price is far too high.'_

"You are familiar with this?" Erik propped a few sheets of paper up on the piano, his movements jerky and abrupt, vestiges of his discomfort and anger.

Christine swallowed nervously and peered at the piece. "Oh yes," she murmured, brightening. "Yes, that was a piece I worked on in school."

"I know," he nearly snapped.

Christine jumped, then frowned, trying to resist the urge to hiss, '_then why did you ask?' _

"You were rather horrid at the time of your last attempt with this piece, though it is not terribly difficult. Let's see if you have improved at all, shall we?" He continued as if he hadn't noticed her glare, folding his long fingers over the keys with insufferable calm. "Begin."

Unsettled and thrown into the piece, Christine began to sing, but barely made it a few bars before the music stopped.

"No, no!" He snapped, his hands curled into frustrated fists in his lap. "If you won't even try…"

"I am trying! My form…" Christine bit back, and he whipped on her.

"Do you think of nothing but your form, your precision?" He hissed at her. One white hand uncurled from his lap to gesture angrily at the still paper. "Do you have any idea what this piece is about?"

"Of course, it's the story of…"

"Not the story, the emotion! You sing as if you were dead, and we both know, my dear, that out of the people in this room you are the least dead." He muttered his black joke viciously, and Christine felt her breath catch.

"What should I do? It's how I sing," She snapped, her nerves frazzled.

He took a deep breath and visibly calmed, his shoulders twitching as to remove tense knots, his hands uncurling to spread spider-like across his dark knees. "Tell me how you feel, right now," he said softly, his head tilted to stare unblinkingly at his hands. "Tell me honestly. What do you feel?"

"I…" Christine faltered.

"I will not get angry. I want truth. What do you feel?"

"I feel…" Christine thought for a moment. "Uneasy," she acknowledged.

"Go on."

"I feel uncomfortable." He was silent so she continued. "I feel hesitant. I feel nervous. I feel sad. I feel," she paused before saying it. "Fear. Afraid. I feel anger. I feel frustration. I feel hate. I feel pity. I feel guilt. I feel pain. I feel, I feel…" Christine rolled the word around in her mouth before saying it. "Regret," she whispered.

Slowly his face turned to look at her, his yellow eyes sharp, and she had to close her eyes to escape from their stare. "That's it," he said. "Tell me what you regret."

"I don't see…"

"Tell me."

"I regret that I'm….that I'm not a stronger person," Christine whispered. "I regret that I'm weak, that I let this happen to me. I regret…that I didn't see what was going on sooner."

Softly he began to play an unwritten introduction without looking at the keys, his eyes still fixed on hers. "Go on," he murmured encouragement.

"I regret that I'm here," she hissed, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. "I regret that I'm not in control of my life. I regret that I didn't live my life enough. I regret that I don't have my father here to protect me. I regret that I'll never hear my mother's voice again. I regret that I didn't try harder to get away, run farther, faster." Her voice was coming out loud, quick, hysterical, her words blurring together. The music rose in pitch, coming closer to that moment of words and emotion. "I regret that I was so stupid that I believed in angels. I regret that this has happened to me. I regret I couldn't protect myself. I regret my life. I regret my pain." The music filled her head like screams. "I regret, I regret, I regret…"

Jolting she recognized the beginning of the song. "Sing!" He cried, and Christine plunged into it, her voice disoriented, raw, crashing in the air, as if every single moment of bone aching regret that she had ever experienced in her life was being purged. The notes were imperfect, the form neglected, but the sheer energy was like her soul ripping from her body. She sang with such regret it was like dying; she nearly collapsed by the end of it, her heart pounding in her head, her mouth gaping like a landed fish.

"There," his voice shook her out of her stupor and she tilted her head to look at him. He was staring at her with something tenderly painful in his eyes. He reached to brush her sweaty hair out from in front of her eyes, and for that moment she did not move away. "Form does not create beauty. It is our conduit, our studies, but in the end it can not create passion. You feel so much, yet I never hear it. Do you lock it away so tightly?"

She stared at him for a moment, her chest tight. "I'm sorry," she gasped breathlessly, her guilt overwhelming. "I'm so sorry."

"As am I," he whispered. "We both have much to forgive."

"And regret," she said, her voice soft, breakable. "Much to regret."

He stared at her for a moment longer. "Yes," he agreed, standing to gather his papers, his back curved and shoulders slumped, his tall form radiating weariness. "But I don't know which is harder to accept."


	18. July Calms

**The usual: thanks to my lovely reviewers, TT rocks and rolls, and please Read and Review!**

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**Chapter Eighteen: July Calms**

It was as if a war that had been waged for a long time was over inside of the house, and the air held the chilled feel of empty battlefields and meaningless battles. That day in June when she had so rashly made her decision to kill seemed a lifetime ago, driven by fear and anger that had somehow leaked out of her when the battle ended, leaving her drained and weary. The days blended into each other, days without sunrise or sunset, fresh air or stars; just music and for both of them the difficult process of making up what had been done to them and what they had done to each other. The air was stale, the two small players on their chessboard bound to each other by regret and difficult forgiveness, and on one side love, one side pity and a certain resigned anger.

And so it was another summer morning, another voice lesson, another moment of dancing around feelings with uncertainty and discomfort. Christine stood behind him in the music room, her eyes tracing the already familiar contours of his back, where the bones lay and jutted, how the fabric whispered when he moved and hung off his thin frame like a shroud. After being locked in solitude with him for two months she knew every movement he made as if it were her own, knew the cut of his suits and the angle of his shoulders and the dips and hollows of the mask.

The clock told her that it was just after noon as she finished her scales and watched him sort through piles of music, searching for the right song. Lately lessons had started beginning earlier and earlier and lasting later; he was fanatical about her voice, driving her to perfection until she was amazed at how far she had come. But Christine also knew that it was not only her voice that drove these long hours, it was her very presence: these lessons were the only time they ever connected, ever spoke without reservation. During lessons she pushed all unwanted thoughts from her head and focused on music, on the cathartic purge of emotion and relief that it brought both of them. Sometimes it was almost like happiness.

Though without the music, in the silent between moments, his stiff back and harsh coldness and her quiet resistance and bitterness showed the strains of all that had happened; all was not forgiven yet. Christine doubted that it ever would be.

'_He kidnapped me and I tried to kill him,'_ she thought ironically as she watched him select a piece and place it smoothly on the piano. '_After everything I think that we are both just too broken to be fixed, though we fight for what can never be.'_

As always the unwanted thought rose in her head. '_Maybe I never will get out of here. Maybe this will always be my life.'_

She tried very hard not to let the thought depress her, but just the same she was relieved that it was a sad song and made no excuses when she felt tears on her face by the end, as she so often did.

When the song was over he turned to her and studied her face, his yellow eyes staring at the wet marks of her tears as if he had never seen anything like them before. There was silence for a long time as his gaze slowly drifted up the tear trails to her eyes. Christine found herself holding her breath as he looked at her; the moment seemed charged, heavy, his eyes too intense with an indiscernible emotion.

Finally he sighed and looked away, and the moment was broken. "You did very well today, Christine," he murmured, his head tilted to watch his hands as they skimmed across the polished surface of the keys without making a sound. "Very well. I am very happy with the hard work you have put into these past few weeks."

Christine felt her pulse lodge in her throat; it was the first praise she had heard from him since that night in June. "Thank….thank you."

"I have thought, since you have worked so hard, since we have an understanding…" He turned to regard her again, his eyes suddenly pleading and unsure. "I thought that you might like to go somewhere with me."

Christine was taken aback. "Where?" She asked warily, and she could see the edges of his mouth curl upward.

"Outside."

She resisted the urge to stomp her foot like a child. "_Where _outside?" She asked, a bit petulantly.

"To someplace quiet and beautiful. Would you like to go outside, Christine?"

Suddenly she saw that he was serious and felt the breath whoosh out of her lungs. "You're serious?" She gasped.

He nodded somberly. "But you would have to promise not to try to run away," he said, his words soft. "You know that it would be fruitless." It was almost a question, like he still didn't know if she fully understood her situation.

Christine tried not to smile too widely but she felt her calm facade cracking with emotion. "Oh yes! Of course! Please, let's go outside!"

She was acting like a child, and some part of her mind berated her for being so excited in front of him, so happy to just be leaving the house. But oh, to be outside in the summer heat! It seemed suddenly an impossible dream.

He was watching her tenderly, and Christine flushed. "When?" She asked, turning her head so she would not have to see those heartbreaking eyes.

"This evening, after dinner." He turned his back to the music and flicked through the sheets, signifying the end of the conversation. "Now how about a happier song, my dear. All that crying when you sing is really not good for the voice."

"Alright." She steadied her shoulders and tried not to think about the outside. It seemed so long ago that she ran from the house, though it was only weeks, but she had been so frantic and half mad with panic that she hadn't been able to appreciate the fresh air. Christine was so tired of this dark house with its stale air, the vague dead smell that she associated with him, the never changing scenery, the forever cold night without day. She missed the equilibrium of sleeping when it was dark and rising with the sun. She missed so many little things. '_How much I took for granted,' _she mused as she launched into the song. _'And now I'm so happy just to go outside for one night.'_

A small, squirming voice inside her head told her that she was being pathetic, that she was playing into his hands, acting exactly as he wanted her to act, but she suppressed it fiercely. If it took a few smiles and conversations and calm moments to be free, to taste clean air, if that was playing into his hands, then she was happy to do it. Anything, anything to go home, to get her life back. Anything to go outside.

The time after lessons seemed to drag on forever, but finally dinner was over. Christine stood in her room and shrugged on a tank top. '_It's July,'_ she reminded herself. _'It's warm, outside of this house. Oh, warmth!'_ She ran her hands through her hair before knotting it in a thick ponytail. For a moment Christine let her fingers drift to the hollow at her neck and held them there, feeling the shy flutter of her pulse, warm, alive; she needed the reassurance of life. She felt like a child on Christmas day.

He was waiting for her as she stepped out of the confines of her room, his long pale hands playing with the cuffs of his white shirt, his only concession to the outside heat. She stared at him, her eyes drawn to the nervous motion, and found that it made him more human. He so often seemed like a dark ghost, like if she couldn't see the rise and fall of his chest she would fear he wasn't breathing, but suddenly he seemed lanky and anxious. In the crisp white shirt his limbs seemed too long, his bones protruding so sharply against the soft material, his exposed skin too pale, those unnervingly elongated fingers practically the same color as the cuffs. She smiled at him, and his nervousness calmed, his hands dropping elegantly to his sides.

"Are you ready?" He asked. His hand twitched as if he wanted to offer it to her but did not.

Christine nodded and noticed the same gray door that had been there the day she had escaped, and had disappeared afterward as mysteriously as it appeared. The sight of it made her heart beat faster; a door meant freedom, however slight.

He led her out the door and into the same labyrinthine, twisting hallways that she had seen during her escape, though this time there was no light and in the enclosed corridors she found herself stumbling. Erik walked in front of her, his white shirt opalescent in the darkness and Christine unconsciously reached for it, grasping the soft material between two fingers. His eyes, eerily alight behind the mask, glanced down at her, surprised, and she shrugged weakly.

"I don't want to lose my way. I can barely see."

He didn't say anything, just looked at her with what could almost be amusement in those lit eyes, and kept walking, making turns as easily as if the corridors were filled with light.

And then they were outside on the cracked pavement with the stars so high and cold above them and the breeze warm and real around them, and Christine could have kissed the ground.

Stepping away from him, she turned her face to the sky and drew in a long breath, feeling the smells of summer and the city fill her head. The night heat was soothing, humidity heavy like a blanket around her shoulders, and the sky above her was black and endless.

"It's _beautiful,_' she whispered, tears in her eyes. He said nothing, just looked at her and let her breathe.

Finally she turned back to him and he gestured toward a dark car in the empty parking lot that she had not noticed before. "Come," he murmured, "Or we'll be late."

Christine frowned at him as she followed his outstretched hand. "Late?" She asked, but he didn't say anything else, just opened the passenger door for her and watched as she got in.

She was rather surprised that he drove but he seemed comfortable in the small dark space of the car, his hands curled around the wheel, eyes fixated on the road through the tinted windshield. It was a good excuse for not talking, and they both sat in almost comfortable silence as the car wound through the city streets.

After a few minutes they approached a park and the road around them became shaded with trees. Christine pressed her face against the window, curious as to where they were going. The fear to be alone with him had all but subsided; after two months even her paranoid brain had accepted that he would never cause her physical harm.

'_Psychological harm, however,'_ she thought wryly as she watched the dark trees skim past her. '_I'll need some serious therapy after this.'_

She still tried to convince herself that there would be an 'after this.'

Finally the car slowed to a rolling stop in a shadowed, forgotten parking lot at the edge of the woods. "We're here," he murmured, his voice pleased.

Quietly she opened the door and stepped out into the cool darkness. "Where are we?" she asked.

He came around to her side and gently shut the car door behind her. "A little further," he said, not answering her question. "We have to walk."

Christine looked into the dark woods and felt a thrill of nervousness. The trees before her crowded thickly together; she had no idea what park she was in but the trees seemed to stretch out forever, tangled roots and long grass obscuring the ground. He shifted in the darkness beside her and she turned to see him nervously stretch out an arm.

"I don't want you to fall," he explained as she stared at his arm as if it were a strange object she had never seen before. He began to shift restlessly, his eyes wary and uneasy, until she slowly moved to hook his arm within her own. She could sense his smile as they began to move slowly through the trees; against her arm his shirt felt cool, the skin beneath it cold but not unpleasantly so, the thin shifting muscles corded like sinew. She was glad for his arm as she stumbled on gnarled roots; she was glad that they had called a truce, that hostility had turned to wary understanding and regard. She was so tired of fighting all the time.

The trees suddenly broke and an oasis of smooth grass stretched before her, empty and silent except for the shrill cicadas and grasshoppers. Breathing a low sigh of relief at being out of the woods, Christine released her light grasp on his arm and moved forward a few steps, her head tilted upwards where she could finally see stars.

"Do you know what day it is, Christine?" Erik's voice was soft and at first she didn't even know if he had spoken at all. She pulled herself away from the view and turned to him.

"I don't have any idea, but I know it's June or July…" she trailed off as she saw his lips curl upwards below the mask.

"It's the fourth," he murmured. Christine stared at him for a moment, her brow wrinkled in confusion.

"What…"

The rest of her sentence was smothered by the booming crash that echoed over her head. Spinning around, Christine gaped like a child at the rush of sparkling color that arced like a waterfall in the sky.

"Oh my God…" she whispered in awe. She hadn't seen fireworks since she was a child with her father. The sound boomed around her again; she could feel it roll inside of her bones, shudder down her spine like music. Blossoming flowers of crimson folded outward into the darkness, sparking and burning. She felt tears creep to the edge of her eyes; it was beauty like this that made her cry, beauty that almost hurt.

'_Why does everything beautiful hurt lately?'_ she thought, suddenly thinking of the dark man standing quietly behind her. '_Why is it all excruciating?'_

Like a child she sat in the grass and tilted her head to the sky; the summer air tasted sweet in her mouth and the grass beneath her fingers was damp and lush. The colors arced and collided above her, vibrant reds and greens and golds.

She sat and watched the fireworks until the last boom shook and faded, leaving only drifting smoke and silence behind, and tried not to think.

A hand touched her shoulder. "Did you enjoy that?"

Christine reluctantly stood and turned to him to nod wordlessly. His eyes widened and she was surprised when he raised one long hand to her face.

"You are crying," he said softly as he lightly brushed the wetness on her cheeks. She started and brought a hand up to touch her eyelashes.

"I didn't know."

"No matter what I do I seem to make you cry," he whispered as he broke away from her, and that strange need to comfort him rose in her mind.

"No," she said, plucking at his shirt again but as usual not touching his skin. "No, I liked this. Thank you. It was beautiful. And you…we….we have a truce, don't we. This is…" she studied his eyes as they glowed softly above her. "…peaceful," she finished.

"Yes," he said, his voice like ripples through water. "A truce."

He offered her his arm again and she took it, pausing before she walked to stare back over the empty space of grass that had for a few moments given her freedom. Some figure, some blur of color moved within the trees at the far side, and a shout of laughter filled the air.

Christine felt Erik stiffen beside her as he turned to look at the group of rowdy college students that had just broken out of the trees. His grasp shifted to grip her upper arm, and she gasped at how cold his hand was.

"Let's go," he commanded as he pulled her back toward the trees. His voice was suddenly low and dangerous. She followed hesitantly, her head still turned toward the people. Were her eyes deceiving her?

"Christine?"

A blond young man called her name, and her heart stopped. "Raoul!" she whispered, her mouth dry, stopping in her tracks as she stared at him. He started to jog toward her, calling her name.

"Christine, Christine is that you?"

Startled, Christine opened her mouth as if to call back but the hand around her arm tightened painfully.

"_Him!" _Erik hissed, his yellow eyes glowing hatefully in the darkness, his mouth bared into a snarl. He looked as if he wanted to kill Raoul, but seemed to think better of it and instead jerked her into the trees.

She could still hear Raoul behind her as Erik dragged through the dark space. They were moving faster than she could maintain equilibrium, and every time her feet caught in a knotted root she stumbled, only to have him pull her arm harder toward him. Behind her she heard crashing and wondered dizzily if Raoul was chasing them. Thin branches whipped at her face and tangled in her hair, and sharp sticker bushes clung to her pants. Sweat rolled down her face and she struggled to keep up; her heart pounded in her ears until she could hear nothing else.

"Erik, wait…slow down," she gasped, her legs nearly going out from under her as her ankle lodged in a root, but he didn't even look at her, only moved faster. For the first time in weeks she was afraid of him; his hand was tight around her arm with suppressed violence, and Christine suddenly had a deep and painful fear for Raoul's life.

'_Oh, Raoul,' _she thought as they burst from the woods. _'What have you done?'_


	19. Paradigm Shift

**AN: Sorry for the delay in updates, everyone. I've been really sick and life in general has been just loony. But here we are with Chapter Nineteen!**

**Thanks as always to my reviewers, and to TouchingTrusting the super beta who also thought up the title for this chapter. Thanks as well to Mirrordjyn for correcting my little literary title mistake.**

**Please Read and Review! **

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**Chapter Nineteen: Paradigm Shift**

"Get in the car," Erik commanded, his face turned toward the woods. His back was straight, his muscles knotted under the thin white fabric, his very stance that of a predator. Christine opened the door and paused, her heart beating rapidly, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Are you coming?" She gasped out. He didn't answer her. "Please, Erik, get in the car."

"He…" Erik snarled, his long hands curled into shaking fists at his sides as he spoke to himself. For a moment he seemed barely able to form coherent words, his voice ugly and frantic. "I won't let him take you. I won't let anyone take you. He…"

"Forget him, he is nothing." Christine could hear the crashes coming closer, stumbling footsteps in the darkness, and she prayed for just a bit more time. "I'm not going anywhere. Please, please Erik, get in the car. Let's go. Let's go home."

At the word home his posture seemed to stiffen then suddenly relax, as if drained of energy. He turned on the spot to stare at her standing at the car door, her face a mask of fear. He stared at her for a moment before nodding slowly.

"All right," he muttered, his breathing harsh but his eyes slightly less wild. "Get in the car, Christine. We're going home."

When Raoul burst out of the tree line and into the small darkened parking lot the car was gone, taking Christine with it. He stopped and stared out into the night, wondering if he had really seen her at all, if she had just been a figment of his imagination, if it had been another girl. But he had seen her face in the moonlight, known her hair, her body.

"But why did she run?" He muttered, running a hand through his hair, not knowing how she had saved him, how close to death he had come. "Why did she run?"

The inside of the car was silent for most of the drive back. Erik kept both of his hands wrapped tightly around the wheel, his glowing eyes fixated on the road ahead of them as the speed dial slid higher and higher.

Christine clenched the sides of her seat as the car arced alarmingly around sharp bends and dark trees sped past. She didn't want to think about what had just almost happened. She didn't want to think that maybe he would have really killed Raoul, just for being there, near her, just for calling her name. She bit her lip until it stung and peered at the silent figure next to her out of the corner of her eye.

'_Why did I assume that he was going to kill Raoul?' _She tried to justify in her mind. '_He never said so….he just was angry…and…and…'_

And Erik would have killed him. She didn't know how she knew it, but it was an irrefutable fact in the silence of the car, in his ugly words and shaking anger. Erik would kill to keep what was his.

For the first time a whole new fear entered into Christine's mind, replacing the fear for herself that had just recently calmed. It was a fear of others, all others, anyone who might help her or stand in the way of what Erik was determined to see happen.

'_And what is that?' _Christine wondered, not for the first time. '_Where does he see this road taking us? Is this how he sees forever? Is this my forever?'_

The air in the car seemed suddenly stifling and Christine felt her windpipe close up. Without thinking she rolled down the window and stuck her head outside into the quickly moving stream of air, feeling it blow her hair back and tug at the skin of her face. She opened her mouth and the wind pushed air into her lungs; as if coming up from underwater she took a deep shuddering breath and opened her eyes to see trees speeding by, so close to her head. He seemed to be taking a roundabout way to the house but she didn't care; she just breathed in air and tried to calm the tightness in her chest.

As if of its own volition one of her arms stretched imploringly out of the window and toward the trees, as if their long branches could snag hold of her and pull her from the dark car. '_Help me,' _she pleaded with them, knowing in her mind that she was being silly, but she wanted it so badly. '_Save me…'_

"We are entering a populated area, my dear, I suggest that you put your head back inside the car." His words seemed to be coming from far away.

Sighing, Christine pulled her head back inside of the quiet space; after the rush of the outside air it seemed eerie and charged. She could tell by his stiff posture that he was angry, a set bomb not quite defused.

They were still silent as they emerged from the car and entered the familiar side door of the hulking, empty building. This time she followed without touching him; she was still numb with shock over what had happened and he was still rigid with suppressed rage. Christine nearly tripped several times in the dark upward sloping stairwells as she struggled to follow his near silent figure, but she did not take his arm, nor did he offer it.

'_I have to do something,'_ she thought as they entered the strange house again and the familiar cold draft hit her. '_It's been so hard to be totally alone, to live so silently…I can't go back to that. I can't!'_

Suddenly not hearing his voice or his quiet conversation was as terrifying as speaking to him used to be. She had been alone with her fear for so long and she didn't think she could take another minute without company, alone in her head. She had seen something dark and ugly rise to the surface in him that night but he had suppressed it, and that thought emboldened her. Now, here, back in familiar territory, she could maybe gain back what had been lost before it slid forever back into darkness.

'_Anything not to be so alone,'_ she thought, justifying her actions. '_Anything to go outside, to be released. Anything to erase what happened tonight, to calm that anger. I don't know what to do! He scares me, but…but I fear loneliness more. I've had so many days alone.'_

He was stalking toward his room but she called out to him impulsively. "Erik?"

He paused and a tremor seemed to run through his thin body, and she realized how rarely she used his name. "Yes, Christine?" he asked, his voice low, still not facing her.

"I, well I mean…would you…?"

He turned to look at her, and his voice was softer. "Yes?"

"Would you like to stay for a few minutes and…and talk?"

He stared at her for a long moment across the room, and somehow the moment struck her as familiar, as if she had stood there looking at him before. "If you wish to," he finally said in a near whisper. "Then I will."

"Good." Something tight eased within her chest as she sat in her usual chair and curled her legs up to her chest. Somehow she had dispelled the tense energy in the room and shifted the focus away from Raoul and all that had happened.

His back and shoulders eased and relaxed as he draped himself onto the couch, his strangely content gaze fixated on her. "What would you like to talk about?" He asked softly.

Christine laid her head on her knees and stared at him sideways, suddenly very tired. "Anything," she said. "Anything."

He tilted his head at her and blinked. "Anything?"

She closed her eyes so she could just hear his voice wrapping around her, so that she could imagine that they were two normal people having a conversation. "Tell me about yourself," she said in a low voice. "I know so little about you."

He sighed and somehow, without opening her eyes, she could sense him stiffen in agitation. "There is much about my life that does well not to be said," he said darkly, and she shrugged.

"Then don't say it." Christine didn't want to know if he had done terrible things in his past, didn't want to know how he came by such frightening power. He was right; it did not need to be said. She didn't need to know his past to fear or respect him, and she didn't need any more stress, any more heavy knowledge to weigh on her at night. "What is your favorite book?"

He seemed taken aback by her unassuming question. "You have seen the size of my library and you ask me to choose just one?" He asked, amusement in his voice.

"Ok then, what about your favorite author?"

"I must choose one?"

Christine almost smiled. With her eyes closed it all seemed so real, so natural. "You're being evasive."

"I can not tell you a favorite but I will tell you one of my favorites." There was a pause as if he was trying to build anticipation. "Dostoyevsky."

Christine allowed herself a small smile. "Crime and Punishment?"

"That, but it's not the only book he wrote. His characters are rounded, lyrical…human," Erik trailed off. "It's like he captures something inescapably real with his words."

"As do you," Christine spoke so softly she was sure he could not hear it.

"And you, Christine? What is your favorite?"

"Anything and everything," she yawned.

"You're being evasive," his voice was gentle, without any hint of mocking.

"It's the truth." Her eyelids felt heavy; she just wanted him to keep talking. "What's your favorite opera?"

He laughed lightly, a surprisingly pleasant sound. "Now that I truly can not choose." He paused. "What would you think it would be?"

Christine grinned despite herself. "Faust," she answered immediately.

"Why?" He seemed genuinely curious.

"Love and redemption, intense symbolism, heaven, hell, not to mention the amazing music and the ever necessary Mephistopheles rising out of the floor. It's so heavy, it's just…" she cracked an eye open to find him staring at her, those yellow eyes unfathomable. "What?"

The visible corners of his mouth curled upward tenderly. "You still surprise me, Christine."

Christine averted her eyes from that intense gaze. "What do you think my favorite would be?"

He was silent for a moment as if he were taking the question very seriously. "La Traviata…" he said finally. "Or Aida."

"Two amazing choices," she smiled. "La Traviata does have the most beautiful prelude. The first time I heard it I think I held my breath."

"Do you love him?"

The room was silent for a long moment as the unexpected question blindsided Christine and her breath hitched in her throat. Slowly she turned to look at him; he was staring at her with an unhealthy intensity, his eyes betraying the calm façade of the mask.

"I…what?" She finally breathed, unable to understand what he was after.

"It's a simple question, Christine. This young man of yours, do you love him?" He seemed so calm, so normal, but the air was suddenly charged.

Christine felt the hair on the back of her neck rise in nervousness. "I…no, I don't think so. I mean, he's my friend, I've known him since childhood."

Even if she had feelings for Raoul she certainly wasn't going to say them here, in front of Erik, who she suddenly remembered, as if waking from a dream, was a kidnapper who was quite possibly capable of murder.

Erik did not seem completely satisfied with her answer. "I did not like you seeing him," he said bitterly. "He is not good for you. He could ruin everything."

Anger flared briefly within her stomach and caused the words to blurt from her mouth unexpectedly. "Would you have killed him tonight?"

He stared at her grimly, then raised his shoulders into an elegant shrug. "Perhaps."

Christine gaped at him as her stomach twisted in knots; hearing him say it was so different from thinking it in her own head. "Perhaps?" She gasped.

He blinked at her as if she was overreacting, his calm suddenly impenetrable. "It was an option. His presence was, _is_, a threat to our happiness."

Christine lunged out of her chair, her shoulders shaking in fury. "How could you even…"

He rose suddenly to tower over her, his thin form suddenly commanding and imposing. "I will do what needs to be done to protect what's mine, Christine. I didn't think that you had forgotten that."

She stared at him, her hands balled into fists at her sides, her pale face growing steadily redder. "I am not _yours,"_ she hissed. He smiled sadly at her anger and raised one long hand to gently brush a few strands of blonde hair away from her face.

"Of course you are," he whispered before turning away, his voice taking on a louder tone. "You're so angry, my dear. Why don't we use that anger to work on your music? I'll choose something satisfactorily vicious. Come." He walked away before she could protest, signaling the end of the conversation.

Christine stared at his retreating back for a moment before following, her anger and resignation sitting within her like a cold weight. She didn't want to, but she went, because he had told her to. Anger and defiance wouldn't help. Nothing would.

This time, as with all times, she simply didn't have a choice.


	20. Interludes I: July

**Thank you so much for the great response for the last chapter! Sometimes you guys just blow me away. I feel so honored to have people truly enjoying this.**

**Thanks as usual to TouchingTrusting, who helps keep me sane and has great ideas.**

**Please read and review!

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**Chapter Twenty: Interludes I: July**

She began asking what day it was.

Christine didn't know why but she suddenly had the desperate desire to get her bearings, to secure herself back on solid ground. The days floated by her, unchanging and without sun, and the only way that she knew time had passed was the slight growth of her now shaggy blonde hair and the continuing feeling of normalcy that the past months had instilled in her. It was a good inner clock: every time they spoke there was less fear, less anger; every day her brain slowly assimilated to the strangeness of her situation, making it normal. Christine found that she could barely fathom life outside after being secluded for so long; she had a routine inside that house, she had a life, and since she couldn't escape her mind began to blur and accept it. It was exhausting to fight at all, and impossible to fight forever.

So every day when she woke she asked him the date and time, and he told her. It became almost a game, something both amusing and heartbreaking.

After she asked the question she would eat and talk with him, though he never ate in front of her. Then she would find something to read or sometimes sketch on paper found in the dresser in her room. About once a week they would go outside to some secluded area, always away from people, always when it was dark. Sometimes they would talk with a certain relaxed, close air that the outside inspired, but mostly he just stood back and let her enjoy her small freedoms.

Often during the day she would take a nap; she felt fragile and weakened without the sun, the small blue veins that ran web-like under her eyes startlingly blue and visible beneath the skin. She so often cried herself to sleep that she felt like her eyes were permanently bloodshot and tired. He was kind to her and her days were pleasant, but at night alone with her thoughts the claustrophobia and regret would come, and she cried and cried.

Several times a day they would sing. Voice lessons took up much of their time; he seemed happiest when she sang, and he was somehow more real to her when he was happy. She could touch him on the shoulder or sit by him on the piano without fear, and she never again saw what was under the mask.

On July twelfth Christine started a journal, writing secretly in a notebook found in one of her drawers. She didn't know why she wrote clandestinely, why she didn't want him to know that she was penning down scribbled thoughts in the quiet of her room. She had just felt lately like the walls were closing in on her, like the air was unbreatheable, and if she didn't have a place to push her thoughts out of her head she would truly go mad.

'_I don't know how to live with this much weight on my shoulders,'_ she wrote furiously, her hand cramping. '_How can you interact with someone on a normal, rational level while knowing that you are their whole world, their whole chance for happiness? It's drumming inside of my head every time I talk to him, that the only reason I'm here is because he believes that he can't live without me. Me! What on earth does he see? I want to blurt that out every time I see him. Why me? Why me?_

_'I don't know what to think of him anymore. I can't say that I hate him, I can't, not after that night, not after seeing his face. It makes things better, in a way…it makes things more understandable, his actions more sane. I don't know what to think! I can't forgive him for what he's done, but I know now that he would never hurt me, that he is human underneath it all. He speaks with me like I am not a captive and sometimes I start to forget my anger, forget to fight. How am I supposed to fight a battle I can't win? I can't give up, and I can't win…I'm at a stalemate. And he…_

_'He fascinates me, I have to admit it, if only on paper. He has a strange beauty within everything he does; the fluidity of his movements, his music, his voice, everything. I don't know what to do sometimes. I just don't know what to do._

_'I want to go home. I feel like I'm dying here._

_'I want to go home. I want to go home.'_

Sighing, Christine signed her name and wrote the date in small, even letters at the bottom of the page. July twelfth. Time was passing.

On July fifteenth Christine stared at her neat signature and realized with a start that she did not know Erik's last name. She had never even thought about it. In her mind he had always been Just Erik. He was so singular he did not seem to need the petty distinction of a last name.

After storing her notebook safely behind a heavy coat in the back of the wardrobe she made her way out of her room and, after wandering for a few minutes, found him hunched over the piano, composing.

"Erik?"

His back stiffened slightly as she called his name, and his masked face turned slightly toward her though his body didn't move. "Yes, Christine?"

The only time that he didn't sound obliging to her was when he was composing; he seemed so wrapped up in his own world that any interruption, even to eat or sleep, was considered a nuisance.

His hands tensed over the paper he was surveying as she stood there silently for a few moments. "What do you want?" He asked, his lovely voice irritated. "Could you just…"

"What is your last name?" Christine burst out suddenly, and he froze. "I mean, I was just thinking and I realized that I don't even know your full name and…I would like to know…I think I have a right to know…don't I?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Laroque," he finally murmured.

Christine raised her eyebrows, surprised that he had even answered. "You're French?" She asked. He sighed and straightened up, stretching his arms above his head in a tired fashion.

"My father was," he said. "But really, if you don't mind, I need to finish this."

"And your middle name?"

He sighed irritably, but not without indulgence. "William," he finally said. "After my mother's father. Now may I finish my work?"

"I'll see you in a few hours," she said, turning to leave the room.

Instead of returning to the silence of her room Christine stretched out on the couch and stared at the dark ceiling, her mind a blur.

'_How can he know everything about me and I know nothing about him?' _she wondered, biting her lip. '_Is this why captives start to relate to their captors, because they get to know them? How can you live with someone and not relate to them? Is knowledge a dangerous thing? How can I stop from wanting to know about the person who has taken away my life?'_

A knot of some strange emotion, a mixture of worry and sadness and frustration, curled in the pit of her stomach. '_Erik William Laroque…who are you?'_

Days droned smoothly by.

He told her when she asked that it was July twentieth, a Wednesday, but after so long in the dark it didn't seem to matter anymore, though she still asked.

The clock on the wall read six o'clock (_night or day, night or day?)_ and Christine was curled up in her chair struggling through "The Tempest." She knew that Erik had a special fondness for Shakespeare, and accepted the book when he offered it, but she had never been able to grasp the meaning behind the words.

"Are you not enjoying it?"

Christine started at the sound of his voice and realized that she had been staring at the same spot on the page for several minutes. She shrugged at him, feeling rather tired. "He's always been a bit of a blind spot with me. I don't find his writing…enjoyable. It's difficult."

"I thought you were a great reader." With deft fingers he plucked the book out of her grasp before she even realized what he was doing.

"I love to read, just not….Shakespeare. I know, how uncouth of me."

He smiled gently at her as he sat on the couch and opened the book to the first page. "You use words like 'uncouth' in everyday speech," he said, his eyes gentle. "You are rare, Christine, even if you don't like Shakespeare."

She stared at him in surprise for a moment, until his eyes flickered back to the book. "I have always thought that Shakespeare was an auditory experience more than reading small letters on a page," he commented, his voice soft. "May I attempt to change your mind about him?"

Still rather dumbstruck at his quiet civility, Christine nodded and wrapped her arms around her legs to sink comfortably into the chair.

Erik lifted the book higher with one hand, long fingers splayed across the cover, while he gestured grandly with the other as he began to read. His unearthly voice floated across the air like song, flowing lyrically with the iambic pentameter. Christine closed her eyes in appreciation of the beauty. How could small cold words seem so alive?

Christine lived for those little moments of peace, when she could almost believe that her life was normal. She lived for the nights where it became habit for him to read to her from the faded volumes in his library: Shakespeare, The Canterbury Tales, Victor Hugo, Milton, ancient poetry, modern short stories. She would always sit curled in her chair with her eyes closed as he read, his voice like music, painting effervescent pictures in her mind.

Days passed and blurred like purgatory, like winter. Everything was so vague, so unchanging, with only Erik for company, only Erik for life. Was this his plan? Was he human, really, on the inside?

July twenty seventh, he had told her earlier, hours and hours before. A Monday. Christine rolled on her side and looked at the small clock next to her head. The hands pointed at 4:25. She could usually guess at the turning of the earth but sometimes it was impossible. Night or day?

Sighing, she pulled herself out of the entangled covers and padded into the bathroom to wash her face. Though she was perpetually exhausted she had not been able to sleep lately, and her skin had begun to take on a thin, parchment colored quality. Slowly she wiped her face with a washcloth, feeling the cool water wipe away the sweat of another restless nightmare, the kind that came when she finally feel into a half sleep.

Wrapping a robe around herself and knotting her tangled hair at the back of her head, Christine found herself drawn from the stangnance of her room, her legs twitchy and her feet restless. She wanted to walk the house at night, if it was night, and explore its nooks by a different light.

Quietly she cracked open her door and was immediately greeted by soft, inarticulate singing. Christine paused, momentarily taken aback, and had to stifle the bizarre urge to smile.

Erik was hunched on the couch, his white dress shirt wrinkled and rolled up the elbows, breathing a soft song under his breath as he carefully restrung the well worn violin in his hands. His head was bent so that she could not see his masked face, and her eyes were drawn to his long hands that moved with calm, intense dexterity over the instrument, his every movement precise and smooth. He seemed so human, his white forearms so thin in the half light, his work so careful and reverent, his muttered song soothing. Christine had only ever seen him focused on her, that intensity turned towards her, and it was a brief relief to see him when his gaze was turned elsewhere.

'_Gentle,'_ she thought, surprising herself. '_He looks gentle. Almost…normal.'_

She must have inadvertently made some small movement because Erik glanced up at her, his yellow eyes widening in surprise. His hands tightened almost imperceptibly around the violin and his shoulders visibly tensed. Christine realized with a strange revelation that she made him nervous.

"You are awake early," he said, carefully laying the violin on the small polished table.

"So it is early," Christine murmured. "I wasn't sure."

He rose, that strange tenseness still visible in his posture. "Would you like some tea?" He asked, heading to the kitchen.

"Yes please." She followed him to the small room and watched as he put a kettle on the stove. "I couldn't sleep."

"Neither could I," he said, still not looking at her as he turned the stove on. "I sleep so rarely, though."

"I've noticed." Christine watched as he slowly rolled his sleeves back down the length of his emaciated forearms and fastened the cuffs, tugging almost fastidiously at the wrinkles. She realized that he didn't like her seeing him so unguarded, without the stiff formality of a suit or a situation where he knew just what to say.

"The tea is ready," he said, removing mugs from the cupboard and finally turning to her. "Would you like to take it to your room?"

Christine stared at those bizarre, unsettling eyes. "I'd like to sit with you for a while, if you don't mind," she said. "I'm not really tired."

He seemed to smile and his postured relaxed. "Neither am I," he agreed, handing her the tea. "I believe the quiet hours are such an artistic time."

She smiled wistfully and made her way back to the couch. "Could you show me what you were doing with the violin?" She asked, and watched as he lifted the instrument into his hands, his eyes alight with enthusiasm as he held the polished wood and showed her the worn strings.

'_An artistic time,'_ she thought, looking at him as he worried over the violin, displaying it with pride and strange love.

Somehow, in a world where she so desperately needed a sense of normalcy, early morning insomnia tea became a ritual.

July passed and ended as quietly as it had come.


	21. Interludes II: August

**Chapter Twenty One: Interludes II: August**

August breezed in almost without her knowledge; in her night world, the days did not change, but whenever he told her the date Christine thought with something akin to panic how long she had been there, how much life she had missed. She thought in quiet moments of her friends, of Jammes and Meg, and of her University, Aunt Valerius, and of Raoul. She was almost afraid to think of Raoul, as if Erik could see her thoughts and would condemn her for them.

She wrote in her journal nearly every day, though sometimes she just sat with it in front of her for hours, not sure what was safe to write. She couldn't mention anything that could be harmful if he was to find it, and that severely limited her thoughts. So often she wrote simple static emotions, sensations, questions. Pages slowly degenerated from long sentences into fragments and words. _'Cold. Lonely. Together? I want to know him. I know nothing. Is that better? Dark. I miss the sun. If I were away, would I miss him? Perhaps. There is beauty here. He makes things lovely. Lovely. Lonely._

_Why me?'_

Later, when she would reread her entries, she often didn't understand what she had written.

Erik himself was slowly become more real to her, even though she tried to stay distant from him. He spoke with her so often that one day she realized suddenly and forlornly that she spoke to him more than she had spoken to anyone in her life. What did that mean?

He had said that morning that it was August sixth, and Christine had just lost her fifth consecutive round of chess.

She scowled at him as he calmly replaced the small players on their board. "Would you like to play again?"

Christine sighed and bit her lip. "Ok, fine," she consented. "There has to be some way to beat you."

His lips curled upward slightly. "If not at life then at chess?" He inquired, and she felt her breath catch in anger.

"Exactly," she hissed as he made the first move. She cracked her knuckles as she debated where to go, her mouth set in a tight line. Suddenly she froze as he leaned over and placed one long cold finger on top of her knuckles.

"Don't do that," he said softly, his skin still lightly brushing her hand. "You can not concentrate when you are so frustrated."

Christine waited until he moved his arm away to make her move, pushing a pawn forward tentatively. He countered immediately and sat back, his yellow eyes staring disconcertingly at her.

"Who taught you to play chess?" She asked as she slid forward another pawn and he immediately countered with a knight. He was silent for a moment, and Christine thought that he was not going to answer.

"My father," he said softly, surprising her. "We played every evening when I was young."

The idea of a young Erik, an Erik that was anything other than the thin, imposing man sitting across from her, intrigued Christine. He seemed too in control to have ever been young, to have had parents. Suddenly she wanted to know what had driven him here, what events in his life had pushed him so that he stalked and kidnapped a girl and sat across from her playing chess like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Did your mother play as well?" Christine moved her bishop out of harms way and waited for Erik to attack.

"No," he sounded agitated, torn between the game and memories. He lunged forward with his queen and took her knight. "I never knew my mother. She left soon after I was born."

"Oh…" Christine trailed off and stared at him, forgetting the game. "Did you ever find out what happened to her?"

"I believe that she committed suicide." He did not meet her eyes and gestured for her to make a move. "She couldn't bear what had happened to her life, to remember what I was."

Christine slowly moved a pawn and tried to change the course of the conversation. "So you lived with your father…?"

"He never had a steady job, we were always moving around Europe, and then America." Erik scooped up her ill fated pawn. "He tried his best. It wasn't easy. He wanted to hide me. I left when I was fifteen."

Christine moved her queen near to his king and waited for his move. "What did you do?"

"I traveled the world for a long time. It I lived in the Middle East for many years before returning here to bury my father. I stayed. This country, it is anonymous, it is progressive…it suited me."

He trailed off as if suddenly realizing what he was saying. Christine stared at him, wanting to know what had happened during the vast amount of years he had glossed over. The way he said it gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she remembered how she had decided that not knowing was best. But against her will she had to acknowledge that he was fascinating, and that she couldn't help but feel empathy for him. Both of them were orphans.

Christine didn't realize that she was still staring at him until she jerked out of her reverie to find him watching her gently. "I didn't realize that this was going to turn into a question and answer session," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said, suddenly flustered. He stared at her a moment longer.

"Don't be," he said, standing up and starting to turn his back. "You needed to know some things about me. I did not plan to forever keep you in the dark."

"What about the game?" Christine asked, staring at the board. With a lazy, casual gesture, Erik reached across the table to tap his bishop set sneakily into position, and then effortlessly flicked her king onto his side.

"You've already lost," he said quietly before retreating into the music room for their lesson.

August moved steadily forward.

Her voice lessons were becoming more intense as he became more fanatical and demanding with her voice. Sometimes during lessons she felt as if she barely knew him, as if he barely recognized her. They were just two voices, sounds driving toward perfection.

He said it was August thirteenth.

The song halted abruptly as he jerked his head to stare at her, his eyes sharp. Christine flushed and glared back at him, her hands balled into fists. He had been irritable all day, stopping after nearly every measure to critique her or throw some scalding comment her way, which in turn made her more defiant and angry. He was so brutal during lessons, as if he forgot their circumstances and she was just a troublesome student who was not giving him the perfection he expected.

His hands curled into fists on the keys but did not depress them. "Your breathing is off again!" He snapped. "You're not concentrating, I can hear you gasp for breath after every stanza and your stance is _deplorable._"

"Well it's hard to concentrate with you blowing up in my face every five seconds!" Christine had to fight to stay calm. "God damn it, Erik, I am not perfect."

"You ought to be!" He hissed as he stood abruptly. "After all of the work I am putting in."

"_We_ are putting in," she shot back. "I'm doing the best I can."

He stared at her for a moment as he visibly tried to calm his emotions. "All right," he said, walking over to her with quick, jerky strides. "We have been going over your same basic problems for months. We will have to try another way, since I do not believe that you understand what I am saying."

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as he stood behind her, and she gasped slightly as he pressed one cold hand along her back to fix her posture.

"You have to stand like this," he murmured, placing his other hand on her diaphragm to tilt her pelvic bone into the proper position. "Always like this. You should know that by now. And when you're angry your chin starts to jut." The hand on the small of her back moved to her jaw and the other to the back of her neck, and Christine felt the clammy cold against her bare skin. Her eyes widened anxiously and she had to fight the urge to shiver. He never initiated contact with her but suddenly his arms were around her and his hands were pushing her jaw back and positioning her head.

"There," he said softly, though his hands did not immediately leave her skin. She could feel her face flushing, the heat burning into the cold. "You lose your position so easily. It is hard to believe that you were so incorrectly taught. You should never change this stance until you master it, understand?"

Suddenly shaking, Christine nodded. He held her there for a moment longer, his breath light and fast in her ear, before slowly and shakily moving away. "Now let's see if you can follow my instructions."

She sang it better, and after lessons went straight to her room. Her face still felt cold.

The days blurred: August fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth. The eighteenth was their weekly outing.

That night Christine found herself stretched on her back on a still and silent merry-go-round in a small abandoned park near the woods, far enough from the city that she could stare at the stars. It was midnight and she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the far away lights; they were splattered across the sky like white paint on black canvas, haphazard, without pattern.

"Do you know any constellations?" She asked quietly, her voice breaking into the summer sounds of cicada and night birds. He was standing near her and she saw him tilt his head back.

"There." His long hand traced a winding path through the sky. "That's Draco, the dragon. And those three stars there," his arm swept to another part of the sky, "are Orion's Belt."

Christine squinted and turned her head. "I can't see it. They all seem so random."

He laughed lightly, a surprisingly pleasant sound. "They are. Humans always find the need to label things, organize things. They can't stand random chaos."

"You say that as if you are classifying the actions of others." Christine pulled her gaze away from the stars to study him. He frowned at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Whenever you talk about other people you always say 'humans' as if they were something foreign…as if you don't consider yourself one of them."

The voice that carried over to her on the night breeze sounded sad. "I don't, often."

"How would you classify me?" The question felt strange leaving her mouth, as if she hadn't expected to say it.

Erik shook his head, his hands coming up expressively in the air. "No, no, you are different. We…" he broke off for a moment and stared at her. "Despite all appearances I believe that we are similar…you and I."

Christine fell silent at the comment and resumed staring at the stars, trying to figure him out. "When I was little my mother and I made up our own constellations to go with the stories she told me at night…I can't remember them now."

"She died when you were very young."

Christine had a feeling that he knew everything anyway but she didn't care. "When I was six. A car accident. It…it ripped my family apart."

He was silent but she could sense the unasked question. She pressed on, feeling as though a huge weight lay on her chest, suffocating her.

"Her car crashed into the side of a building…they said the accelerator broke, because they found out the car accelerated right before impact…but it was a new car…" her voice trailed off dully as she stared at the stars. "She was a good mom," Christine whispered. "She taught me to sing, she smelled like the garden and the paint from her workshop. She…she was happy with us, I think. I thought she was happy. But even after all these years I still don't know what to believe."

"Believe what makes it bearable."

"Even if it isn't the truth?"

"Especially then." She felt him sit near her head and his long fingers stroked her hair. "You believe your father loved your mother more than you. You thought he would leave you behind one day, so you clung to him and made him your whole world…to make him stay."

Christine heard his words as if from far away. "He left anyway, though," she whispered. "It wasn't the cancer the killed him. He just…stopped trying, stopped fighting. And he's gone now."

"He is in the stars," Erik's haunting voice reached out, soothing her. "And I will never leave you."

"I know."

"Believe what makes you happy, even if it isn't true."

Christine closed her eyes. "I know."

August was almost over.


	22. August Takes and Gives

**AN:**

**If I had to split this story into 'Parts' then I would have to say that this chapter is the end of Part One, which is why it seems a good place to take a much needed brief hiatus. School and life have been very stressful lately, and with finals coming up I haven't been able to write as much as I usually do. I'm going to take a break from posting for about a month in order to crank out more chapters so I will never have to take a hiatus on this story again.**

**As usual thanks to all of my reviewers and my beta TouchingTrusting; you guys always keep me going. And don't worry, I'll be back soon. I promise.**

**PS:** **Miss M. Paroo, you wrote a literary critique? Could you please give me an email address or some way to contact you, I would love to read it.**

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**Chapter Twenty Two: August Takes and Gives**

Time moved and blurred in the quiet little world that he had created, and soon it was the end of August. There were times that she almost forgot that she was a prisoner, though his frequent veiled warnings or odd possessiveness always jolted her back to reality. She had been there nearly four months.

"Four months," Christine whispered to herself one morning as she stood in front of the bathroom sink and brushed her hair. The bright light seemed harsh in her eyes and she winced as the brush tugged at knots. "Has it really been that long? How is that possible? Where did my life go?"

For the first time in what seemed like a long time she thought of school, of her apartment, her major, the life she had planned before this. Carefully she set down the brush and stared at her reflection, pallid in the yellow light; she hadn't paused to really look at herself for so long. Christine touched the blue veins beneath her eyes and saw that they were the same shade as her irises. Then, slowly, she reached her thin hand over to touch the frail girl reflected in the glass, pressing her palm against the mirror. "Is this me?" she whispered. "I hardly recognize myself anymore. What will my life be? Who am I anymore?" Tears burned the back of her eyes but she didn't cry; she had cried so much those first days she seemed to have run out of tears. "Who am I?" she breathed.

When she emerged from her room he was waiting for her at the small table and he seemed more nervous than usual, his long fingers drumming restlessly on the wood, small staccato noises in the silence of the house.

He stood up as she entered, as if he were an eighteenth century gentleman. "Good morning, Christine," he said formally, as he always did. She smiled at him wearily.

"Good morning, Erik." They both sat and he watched her unnervingly as she ate, his fingers resuming their tapping beat on the table. "What day is it today?"

"It's August 24th….a Monday."

"Ah."

There was a thick silence for a few moments as she started to eat and he drummed on the table.

"Did you sleep well?" He asked suddenly, and his voice seemed anxious, more tightly strung than usual. Christine nodded as she bit into a pear. "You look rather pale," he continued. "And you have been losing weight." This was the first time he had ever commented on her appearance and she stared at him for a moment, confused, until he turned away. "Perhaps," he said softly and to himself, "Perhaps then this is for the best."

"Erik?"

He swung to look at her, his yellow eyes almost otherworldly in the dim light.

"Yes?" he asked, that strange tight sound still evident in his voice. Christine frowned at him.

"Is everything all right?"

He stared at her as if he had never seen her properly before. "Of course it is," he said quietly. "But I do…" his left hand swung nervously to his pocket, long white fingers pulling at the fabric with an absentminded gesture. "I do have something for you, though."

"Something for me?" He had not given her anything since those sheets of music so long ago, before they ever met, before she knew who he was. Despite herself she was curious. "Oh? What is it?"

"Finish eating," he said, his voice still strange but his lips curling slightly upward, "and then you will see."

She raised an eyebrow and finished quickly, surprised at how curious she was. A present from Erik? Something about him giving her a present seemed strange and out of place, and it took Christine a moment to realize why. Ever since she had met him he had done nothing but take from her. He took away her freedom, her life, he whittled away daily at her sanity, her equilibrium…

'_But before we met,' _Christine thought rather abruptly, '_he gave me many things. He gave me that beautiful music, he got me into the musical – though I didn't want it to be done like that- and he cared for my aunt when she was so ill. He did so much for me…before. Even if it was misguided, it wasn't all taking. And maybe in his mind he's trying to balance it out.'_

She felt like even after months in his house she still had no idea who he was. She had a small grasp on his emotions, on what would make him angry and what would make him smile or release a rare laugh, but of his deeper self she knew nearly nothing. She still didn't even know what his true plans for her were, only that they were big, and that they included him staying in her life forever. But what she did know was that he considered himself the good guy, the giver and not the taker, the savior. The angel. She knew that he was so assured of his good intentions, of his love one day being returned, and that he had no idea why she always reacted so violently toward him, or why she was unhappy.

'_Did he think that I would just love him because he loves me, that empathy alone and the strength of his emotions would drive me to feel the same way?' _Christine let out a small sigh as she finished her food and looked up at him. '_How naïve. Oh Erik, how sad.'_

He stood and motioned gently for her to follow him into the sitting room, but when she went to sit in her usual chair he unexpectedly grasped her hand with cold fingers and pulled her toward the sofa. Christine gasped slightly at the contact and awkwardly perched at the end of the couch, as far from him as possible, but with unusual determination he edged nearer to her until their knees almost touched.

Carefully he took her hand again and brought it toward him, and Christine felt something small and hard slide along her finger. He released her a moment later, his hand dropping to the side to reveal the small plain gold ring that rested on the fourth finger of her left hand.

'_Oh God!' _she thought, her eyes widening in shock. '_Is this…'_

"I would like you to wear this from now on, Christine," he said, his gaze steady and intense. "This is my gift to you. As long as you wear this ring I will be your friend and I will watch over you, and nothing bad can ever happen to you. You will be protected. You must promise me never to take it off and never to lose it. It is very important." He touched the gold band lightly with one finger. "There will be only anguish should it ever be cast aside," he said quietly. "Do you understand?"

Christine stared, horrified, at the ring, still trying to understand what it represented. It was suddenly so clear to her what was at the end of the road, what his final goal was. '_I will be a married woman someday,'_ she thought, and a cold despair twisted in her stomach. '_But this is not how it was supposed to be!'_

Outwardly, she offered him a weak smile. "Thank you, Erik. I'll…I promise to wear it. Of course."

"It is for you," he reiterated, as if needing to make sure that she understood the rather blatant subtext.

"I know," she whispered sadly. "I know it is."

He hesitated for a moment, then reached for his pocket and pulled out a slim, wrapped package. "And there is also this…"

She eyed it curiously but he simply held it, his gaze still fixated on her face. "I don't want you to open this now, not just yet, but I would like you to keep it with you." He held out the package with one long hand and as she took it his cold fingers brushed against hers.

"When can I open it?" Christine asked with a certain restrained curiosity, and he seemed to smile.

"Soon," he promised. "Just hold onto it until then."

She nodded doubtfully and wrapped both her hands around it protectively. "Ok, then. I will."

He nodded, satisfied, before standing and offering his hand to her, a strange gesture. Normally he rarely initiated contact but today he seemed desperate to have her near him; his eyes were pleading, sad. Christine hesitated for a second before rising and placing her hand in his, but surprisingly his cold grasp was not uncomfortable. He stood there for a moment, entwining her fingers with his and staring at the small gold band as it brushed his skin, before turning and guiding her into the music room. Christine felt a deep seated unease as she took her place beside him and began to sing. What was the matter with him today?

He stayed near her all day, speaking with her, watching her almost constantly. Christine could see how tense he was; his shoulders seemed hunched and knotted, his hands flexing almost constantly, an unnerving gesture. At dinner he sat across from her and didn't shift his gaze once, though his thoughts seemed far away. Christine cleared her throat.

"Listen, Erik," she sighed and resisted the urge to reach across the small table and take his cold hand. "Really, what is the matter? You've been so tense all day. Was it…I mean, is everything ok, with your work?"

He pulled his eyes away from her to study his hands. "No, no that is going well. I have it…I have a system, and it runs without me very easily unless there is a problem or unless something needs to be changed, but it has been quiet lately. These last few months have been like a ….a sabbatical for me. A rest time."

"Oh," Christine murmured, surprised. He had never spoken of his work before.

"Yes," he continued absentmindedly. "Everything works quite well…spokes in a machine…I am just the overseer. The world goes on around me, I am not even necessary….unless I make myself necessary. And I suppose that they are happy to get rid of me. I just take, you see….I so rarely give."

Christine stared at him, unnerved by the fact that his words echoed her previous thoughts.

"Are we going to go outside tonight?" She asked finally, trying to dispel the strange tense silence in the room. It was the night of their weekly outing and she was starting to think that he had forgotten. Christine was starting to feel a desperate claustrophobia when they didn't go out, a caged frustration of pacing the same rooms again and again, of being so cold but knowing that there was warmth outside.

Erik blinked at her as if coming out of a dream. "Yes….yes of course…if you want to."

It seemed an odd thing to ask, but Christine brushed it aside and nodded her head. "Please, I'm looking forward to some fresh air."

"Fresh air," he repeated rather dully. "Alright then, if it must be done let it be done now. Would you like to change first?"

Christine shook her head. "No, I'm fine, I have a tank top on under my sweater."

He stood up and once again offered his hand to her, which she took. His unusual behavior was making her stomach clench. Everything he did seemed barely controlled; when he held her hand he tightened his fingers almost painfully around hers, and he walked so slowly toward the door, his head bent.

"Where are we going tonight?" Christine wanted so badly to break the tension.

He didn't look at her. "Someplace you will like," he said quietly, so that she could barely hear him.

They moved without speaking through the darkened slanted hallways, though this time they exited through the front door and not the usual side door. Christine blinked to adjust to her surrounding, and was surprised to see a dark chauffeured car waiting.

Erik hadn't used a driver since her escape attempt, and something about it struck her as ominous. She glanced up at him but his face was resolutely turned away from her and he led her across the pavement to the car without a sound and opened the back door for her.

A few moments later he was seated next to her on the back seat and the car started moving. Though Erik was silent as always Christine could hear his slightly labored breath; he was hunched over slightly as if he were in pain, and without thinking Christine reached over to touch his hand.

He jerked back as if he had been burned and his gaze swung upward to meet hers. There was something strange in his feral eyes, something that she rarely saw. _Fear?_

"Erik…" she said softly.

Her hand was still hovering in the air and he seized it and pressed it between his own, draining it of its heat. "You are…happy here, with me, aren't you?"

The intensity of his eyes, his painfully taunt posture and his impulsive actions were beginning to scare her. "Yes…everything is….fine, Erik," she said, choosing her words carefully. Behind his head she could see buildings and trees moving and blurring as the car wound through city streets. He was silent for a few moments, as if trying to collect scattered thoughts.

"I have given you so much," he said with an almost unhealthy fervor. "I want to help you, I want to…to….wipe away your loneliness…._our _loneliness…and create something _greater_ than ourselves, do you understand?"

Christine nodded, though she wasn't sure she did.

"And you have grown so much…so much….your voice….it is…you are just…angelic. I can give you…no, _us, _both of us…a life. I want to give that to you."

"I…" Christine half heartedly tried to tug her hand out of his grip but he didn't let go. "…thank you, Erik."

"It is beautiful, when you say my name," he said softly. "No one has ever said my name like you. It is almost….happiness."

He leaned closer to her, his eyes burning behind the mask, and Christine had to fight to not lean back. But he was getting so close!

He must have seen the look on her face because a moment later he leaned back and closed his eyes. "I want to give you so much, Christine, and all I ask is that you do not try to leave me. I won't…" he opened his eyes again to stare at her longingly. "I won't let you leave me."

"I know," she said quietly. She wasn't sure what to say. "I won't."

That seemed to be the right thing to say, because he released her hand and seemed to calm. "Turn around," he said.

"What?"

"I want to give something to you. Turn around."

The car had slowed to a stop. Heart in her throat, Christine slowly turned around to look out her window and into the night, and felt her breath catch.

It couldn't be. Tears brimmed in her eyes and she prayed that it wasn't a cruel joke.

There, sitting so quietly and perfectly in the summer air outside of the tinted window, was her apartment.

Christine's heart was pounding so hard in her ears that she barely heard his next words.

"You are free to go."


	23. September Releases

**I'm alllivveee!**

**So, my 'month' off really was more like two months, and I'm sorry about that. Life has been insane, and I have a new job and many night classes and not nearly enough time or energy to write. But I'm getting there, don't worry.**

**Note: In upcoming chapters I'm going to stray from the strict third person that only follows Christine, as there are important scenes that she is not in. Meg and Raoul are going to play a bigger part as the story progresses. Just wanted to give you a heads up before the POV's start switching. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. I think. And if not, well, my beta will smack me around and set me on the right track.**

**As always, please review, they make me so happy.**

**Onward to Part 2!**

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**Chapter Twenty Three: September Releases**

The air was warm and fragrant as she stood on the pavement and watched the dark car slowly pull away from the curb. Christine just stared at it, motionless, her mind still unable to comprehend the fact that it was over. He had let her go.

'_He let me go,'_ she repeated in her mind. '_He let me go. He really let me go. I'm free. Oh my God I'm free!'_

Christine started to laugh, loud, wild raucous laughs that seemed to echo back at her. "I'm home!" She screamed out loud. "I'm home! I'm home!"

Tears were streaming down her face as she danced on the sidewalk like a wild woman, her arms flailing in the air, hair whipping around her face. "It's so beautiful!" She exclaimed.

Then, as if the strength had drained out of her, her legs shook and she collapsed, sobbing so hard she could hardly breathe. "I thought I'd never see this place again," she cried. "I'd thought I'd be trapped in the dark forever. He kept his promise. He let me go. I'm home, oh God, I'm free."

She cried the first tears of happiness she could remember. "I'm home," she kept repeating. "Oh God, thank you, thank you, thank you."

Finally Christine picked herself up and wrapped her arms around herself, fighting sudden nervousness as she approached her front door. _Home._ It had been so long. Was it really home anymore?

Biting her lip with anticipation she pushed the button for the elevator and climbed on, watching as the numbers ticked higher and higher. What would she do now? School started in a few days and she hadn't signed up for any classes, and what would she tell people, what would she do about Raoul, about Meg; how would she explain her absence to Auntie V?

Christine fit her key into the lock and opened the door, and as her small, cramped apartment appeared before her she nearly started crying again. Home.

"Christine?"

Christine snapped her head up to see Meg coming out of the bathroom, her dark hair pulled into a bun, her overlarge nightshirt hanging to her knees. Christine blanched; she hadn't expected Meg to be back at the apartment before school started, what was she supposed to say?

"Well don't just stand there, come on, I want to hear everything! God, it's been _months!_"

"Hear…everything?" Christine repeated weakly as she closed the door behind her, her eyes still drinking in the familiar kitchen, a familiar face.

"Of course, I mean it's not everyday your friend gets back from England!" Meg frowned and stared at Christine's empty hands. "By the way, where are your bags?"

"England?" Christine sank into a chair, her face pale.

"But did you even get to see much?" Meg sat down and began peeling off strips of an apple with her teeth. "I mean, with the mono and everything. But at least you must have stories about your family!"

"M…mono?" Christine asked. "Family?" She felt like she was going to faint. It was all too much.

"Oh God, you still have it, don't you. I should have known; your last email said you still weren't feeling well." Meg inspected Christine's face and frowned. "You're so pale, and thin, weren't they feeding you over there?"

Christine had finally managed to stop repeating everything Meg said aloud, but thought, '_My last email? What the hell is going on?'_

"I need to sleep," Christine said mechanically. "Can we talk about this tomorrow?"

"Yeah, of course." Meg nodded, looking worried. "I'm just happy to see you."

"I'm happy to see you too." Christine suddenly was afraid that she was going to cry as she walked over and hugged the smaller girl. "I missed you," she said, and suddenly couldn't control the tears that streamed down her face. "I missed everything." She began to cry in earnest. "Oh Meg, I was so alone, I thought…I thought I'd always be alone…in the dark."

Meg awkwardly patted her friend on the back. "Why don't you get some sleep," Meg said softly as she pulled away from the still sobbing Christine. "We'll talk some more tomorrow, ok?"

Christine sniffled loudly and nodded. "Ok. Sure."

She padded into the small bedroom; Meg's side was a mess of clothes and half unpacked belongings from home, while Christine's side looked exactly as she had left it. She didn't know whether that was a relief or just depressing.

Sighing, Christine changed out of her jeans and tank top and into her old pajamas. As she carefully folded her shirt she paused for a moment and lifted it to her nose; it still smelled like his house, the scent of pressed petals and hinted incense and that vague dead smell she associated with him.

_'Erik,'_ she thought, placing the clothing into a drawer, realizing that it was not even really hers, it was one of the outfits he had bought for her. '_I wonder what he is doing now.'_

Flipping off the light she crawled into her small bed and listened to Meg move around in the kitchen. Her head felt heavy on the pillow and as she moved to fluff it her hand touched something small and light.

Frowning, Christine pulled the slip of paper out from under her pillow and felt her face go white as she recognized the familiar knotted texture. How did it get here? Quickly she unfolded the paper and read by the dim city light filtering through her window.

**Dear Christine,**

**I hope that you are happy now that you are home and with other people. I know that you could not be happy being alone with me forever, without the sun. I know how much you missed it.**

**Please don't think that I was oblivious to your sadness; I know how hard it was for you to be separated from humanity for so long a time, and I am sorry that events occurred the way they did. Know that I only wanted to help you, that I knew that we had to go through difficult times before you could truly see me. But I told you I would let you go and so I have, and now I only hope that you will keep your promise and remember me, and come back to me.**

**You don't have to worry about school or about excuses for your time away from home, everything has been arranged. You will find your class schedule in your mail. Your friends have been informed via email that you were spending the summer with relatives in England, but unfortunately was very sick throughout the duration of your stay, and unable to see many sights. This will explain your absence without calls, but also keep you from having to speak about your experience much. Keep it simple and do not speak much on the topic. We want everyone to eventually forget that you were gone.**

**Do not forget to wear your ring. It is the symbol of a promise that I expect you to keep. Should you remove it I will consider that promise broken. Do not forget that. Keep the package with you as well.**

**I will contact you soon.**

**-E**

Christine stared at the note for a long time, turning over its words in her head. Her first inclination was to laugh at his choice of ruses. '_Keep it simple_,' she thought mockingly. _'He says this as he creates an elaborate deception and expects me to play along. Why couldn't it have been something simple, like I was with Auntie V or Jammes?'_

She bit her lip, trying to clear her mind. If she had been with any relatives or friends someone could have attempted to contact her, only to find out she wasn't there. If she was anywhere near the area someone could try to find her.

'_Unknown relatives in England,'_ she mused. _'England is far enough away that no one could come looking for me, no one could reach me…and the sickness is so that I won't have to talk too much about my experience. It's actually…perfect.' _She snorted to herself then as she reread the note for the tenth time. 'We_ want everyone to forget…_we._ He acts so much like I am an equal in this, like it's what I want, not just what he wants. _I _don't want anyone to forget. I want out of this. But he keeps saying We.' _She sighed sadly. '_I guess there will never be just I again…always we. Always he.'_

Swinging her legs out of bed, Christine padded to her dresser and tucked the note securely at the bottom of a drawer, then stood staring into space for a long time. Even though she was free he was still controlling everything. He still kept her on a leash; she could practically feel the collar digging into her throat, making it hard to breathe.

Unconsciously she put a hand to her throat as if to reassure herself that there was nothing there. Tears welled in her eyes, so hot they were nearly scalding.

"I don't want to lie anymore," she whispered, staring at the drawer where the letter was buried. "I don't want to lie anymore."

"Christine?"

Meg stood in the doorway, her freshly washed face troubled. Christine turned to her slowly and tried to smile.

"I'm just going to bed, Meg. I'll see you tomorrow."

Christine could feel Meg's worried eyes on her as she crawled into bed. She tried not to think, but suddenly she felt cold and alone and almost sick. _'You're stupid,'_ Christine chided herself as her quiet tears soaked the pillow. _'Stop crying. After all of that you're free, you should be happy.'_ She sniffled, the same thought spinning inside of her head until she fell asleep.

_'I should be happy.'_

The next day Christine woke to sun streaming through her window, and she scrambled to the edge of her bed to yank open the glass and stick her head out. The morning was muggy and still, the streets below her silent, and the soft light that flooded the city was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

"Christine?" Meg asked, sitting up in her bed, her dark eyes groggy. "Why are you sticking your head out the window?"

Christine smiled and jumped off her bed to bound to the closet. Suddenly everything seemed so clear and fresh, the odd sadness of the night before gone with the appearance of the sun. _Freedom._

"It's a beautiful day!" She crowed, pulling out a worn pair of jeans and a familiar tank top. "I want to be outside the whole day!"

Christine nearly skipped to the shower, humming the whole way; she turned the water on icy cold to ward off the summer heat, undressed, and stepped in, lathering her hair with the same shampoo she had left so many months ago. As she rinsed her humming turned to song, and it was only then that she realized the tune she was singing was one that Erik had taught her. She froze and clamped her mouth shut, feeling tainted even as the frigid water fell into her eyes and down her back.

'_No, none of him, not today,'_ she thought, stepping out of the shower and wrapping a towel around her too thin frame. _'I won't let him intrude on me today.'_

Meg was still in her pajamas and drinking streaming coffee when Christine emerged from the bathroom. Christine nudged her as she passed and pulled out her favorite tea. "How was your summer, by the way?"

Meg took a long drink of coffee and rubbed her eyes. "Oh, it was fine. I spent most of the time with my family and working, though I did have some awesome parties here that you missed. But mostly it was another boring summer, nothing like yours."

Christine filled her mug with water. "I'm sure it wasn't," she said ironically before shaking herself out of that dark thought. "Ok Meg, get dressed while I dry my hair. Let's do something fun."

Meg glared at her from the rim of her cup. "Do you realize how early it is, Chris? I thought you were sick."

Christine stuck her mug into the microwave and faced Meg with a small frown. "I was," she said quietly. "But I'm better now. Everything is good." She reached over and took one of Meg's small hands. "Come outside with me, Meg, just for a little while. I want to see the sun."

Meg patted Christine's hand tiredly. "Ok, fine, I'll be ready in fifteen minutes."

Christine beamed and waltzed into the bathroom to dry her hair, humming unconsciously again.

"What'cha humming?" Meg asked idly before Christine closed the door. "It's pretty."

Christine stopped so suddenly she nearly choked. "Nothing," she muttered as she turned the hair dryer on to stifle any further conversation. "Nothing."


	24. Questions

**Thank you guys so much for the _amazing_ response last chapter! I was totally blown away.**

**I'm gonna keep it short this time: Thanks as usual to TT, my awesome beta, and reviews are loved and cherished. Enjoy!**

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**Chapter Twenty Four: Questions**

The entire time they rode the elevator Meg had a small grin on her face. Christine frowned at her; she knew that look, and it meant secrets, that something was about to happen.

"What did you do?" Christine asked as they got off the elevator at the ground floor and walked toward the glass doors. Meg shrugged, the smile still on her face.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Meg…" Christine pushed open the door and breathed in the humid city air. She felt like the city even smelled different in the daylight. The sky was a hazy early morning blue and the few trees lining the street were heavy with shiny green leaves.

"Well there might be a surprise for you but I wouldn't know anything about it." Meg sounded too smug, her tongue stuck playfully between her teeth. Christine shook her head adamantly.

"I don't want any more surprises in my life," she said. "I think I hate surprises."

"Christine?"

Christine felt her heart stop. The last time she had heard that voice she had been running through the woods, in the darkness, afraid for his life. Slowly she turned her head to face his flushed face; he was breathing heavily, as if he had run the whole way there.

"Raoul," she said evenly, torn between being happy and nervous. "How are you?"

He laughed and pulled her into a quick hug; he smelled like cologne and cut grass. "I'm great, it's so good to see you again! Meg told me you were back. I didn't hear from you all summer. How are you?"

Christine cleared her throat nervously. "I'm…I'm fine." She glanced between the two of them. "When did you guys become friends?"

He smiled at her. "I kept calling over the summer to have her read me all of your emails, since you didn't have my address. We both missed you a lot." He paused, a worried look crossing his face. "Are you sure you're OK?" He brushed a hand against her cheek. "You're so pale, Chris."

"I'm _fine_," she nearly snapped, and there was silence for a moment.

"Ah…wanna walk down to the park?" Meg volunteered, and Christine quickly nodded. The three of them fell into step on the sidewalk, not saying much. Raoul still had a strange look on his face that Christine wasn't sure was worry or nervousness.

They crossed the street and as they moved past a building a shaft of morning light broke through the haze and nearly blinded Christine. She stopped abruptly and turned her head toward the searing light, her eyes closed, feeling like her heart would burst.

"The sun," she whispered, feeling so warm. The inside of her eyelids were colored a brilliant red from the light and made her feel as if she were inside the sun, wrapped inside the daytime. Her pale face and arms, used only to the darkness, were hot and flushed with red, but even when it burned it felt good. "I had almost forgotten what it felt like."

Meg and Raoul glanced at each other as Christine basked in the sun. "So, you, uh, didn't have a whole lot of sun in England?" Meg's voice was thin and not quite as upbeat as it had been.

Christine blinked and stepped reluctantly out of the light to join them, though a red halo still lingered in front of her eyes. "No," she said, her voice tight. "Not any, really."

Raoul put a hand on her shoulder and she flinched, a nervous gesture. "Bad weather?" He asked.

"Look, I don't really want to talk about my time away, OK?" Christine said, speeding up her pace. "Please, let's not talk about it anymore."

Raoul jogged lightly to catch up with her and caught her arm, forcing her to stop. His handsome face was crinkled with worry, and she noticed that when he was upset he drew his brows together rather endearingly to form deep lines between them. "Listen, Christine, something is the matter, what is it?"

She glanced over at Meg, who stood a little way away from them, biting her lip and looking worried. Christine sighed and ran a hand through her hair, trying to stay calm and not blurt the truth out. '_Well, you see, I was actually kidnapped by a crazy in a mask and held hostage for the past four months, and incidentally he happens to control all of America, so there is no getting away, and frankly I'm just going a little out of my mind right now.'_ She shook her head and twirled a blonde strand around her finger, tugging lightly at her scalp as she formed her answer. "Honestly Raoul, nothing is the matter. I'm just tired, that's all." She looked at him but he didn't respond; he was staring at the hand she had twined in her hair and though she tried desperately to hide it, it was too late.

"What is this?" He asked, grabbing her wrist and lifting her hand to examine the small gold band around her fourth finger. "This looks like a…"

"Oh my God, Christine," Meg gasped as she edged closer to stare at the ring. "Who gave that to you?"

Christine yanked her hand away from Raoul and held it to her chest as if she had been burned. "No one gave it to me, it's not what you think. It's just an old ring of mine."

"But Christine…" Raoul started, but she shook her head furiously.

"Please, stop talking, stop asking! Just stop, ok, I don't want to talk about anything!" Her voice was rising in pitch and she was close to tears; she held her hand with the ring on it almost protectively, trying to hide the gold band and make it disappear.

"Ok, ok, we won't talk about it," Raoul's voice was soothing as he moved to her side and wrapped an arm around her. Christine had to fight to not break down completely and sob into his shoulder; instead she just smiled falsely and nodded.

"I swear I'm ok, really Raoul, please believe me," she pleaded. "I've just been so sick and I'm really tired."

"I believe you," he said soothingly. "We're just worried about you, that's all. You were gone for so long, and we never heard from you except in emails. It was difficult for me. I missed you, Christine. I really did."

"I missed you too," she whispered.

The three of them continued to walk to the park without saying much; Christine felt so distant and withdrawn that she didn't know what to say. She was afraid to open her mouth, afraid that anything she said would condemn her, reveal things she could not reveal. If anyone found out the truth she was afraid that everything would spiral out of control, that Erik would find out and come take her and lock her up and never, ever…

'_Stop it,'_ she told herself. '_That's not going to happen. I'm free now, I'm here with my friends and everything is going to be alright.'_

She tried so hard to believe it.

As they reached the park she thought of something, and whirled on Raoul, her face concerned. "Oh, Raoul, how is everything with the company? Have you been able to get another job?"

He sighed and sat down on the grass, leaning on his elbows to stare at the sky. "Well, nothing's happening with the company, as it's still not ours and never will be again. This guy took it, totally and completely. But at least the places I've been applying to have become more receptive; I have a steady temp job now and a permanent one should be opening up pretty soon. It's weird, well I mean this whole thing has been weird, but…"

He trailed off and shrugged lightly, as if to dismiss and seriousness, but Christine turned from her spot on the grass to stare at him. "What?"

"Well, it's just that for the longest time no one was even willing to speak with me. They all acted as if my family name had some kind of plague attached to it. But then…all of a sudden they were calling me, offering jobs, being open and helpful. It was like something changed and I just don't know what. I almost think that…but I'm being stupid."

Both girls were glaring at him, and Christine had a knot of unease in her stomach. "Seriously, Raoul, out with it," she said, frowning.

He shrugged again, his face serious. "It seems to me almost like someone was maybe smearing our name, or telling people not to hire me, or something. I know it sounds far fetched; I mean why would anyone care if I got a job or not? But for everyone who was shunning me to just open their doors again, as if they knew something I didn't, as if someone _told_ them it was OK, seems too much of a coincidence, don't you think?"

"Do you think it was the same person who took away the company?" Said Meg, who seemed to have been filled in on the details of Raoul's life over the summer.

He laughed lightly. "I don't think so. He has the company, why on earth would he want me to be out of a job? No, I don't know who it is. I can't think of anyone who would have a reason to hurt me. But maybe I'm just being paranoid."

Christine, who was staring off into the distance, didn't answer.

The rest of the week went by quickly. Christine avoided her friends as much as possible as she settled back into her old life and routine; classes began and she threw herself into them, grateful for something to focus on. She called Auntie V in the nursing home and the nurses told her that V was happy and stable, and asked about her often. Feeling guilty, she called V several times a week to talk and to assure her that everything was going well in her life. She also called Jammes and tried to dodge the inevitable questions about the summer, though it did feel good to hear her friend's voice again.

Every day that passed without contact from Erik made her breathe a little easier, and on Friday, over a week since her return, she agreed to go to dinner with a group of friends at a local Mexican restaurant. She ended up sitting between Raoul and Meg at a small table with too many people at it, most of which she didn't know very well, and Raoul had that nervous look on his face again.

"Listen, Christine," he started off, leaning in to make himself heard over the din, his voice hesitant. "There's something that I've been meaning to talk to you about for a while, but, well, you've been so upset lately that I didn't want to bring it up."

Christine took a bite of her fajita and tried to look calm. "What's up?"

"I…" He took a deep breath. "I saw you over the summer. I know you say that you were in England but I saw you…on the fourth of July…and I know that you saw me too." Christine had gone pale, but he kept talking, his voice urgent. "You were with someone and when I called out to you, you ran from me. Ran through the woods to get away from me! I don't know why you would do that but I _know_ it was you!"

"I…" Christine's throat was dry and she stalled for time by taking a long drink of water. When she finally set it down she found her voice and tried to sound bright. "I'm really sorry Raoul but whoever you saw wasn't me. I wasn't even in the country. You must have seen someone who really looked like me."

He shook his head adamantly. "No, it was you. I know it! Christine, something is wrong, you can't deny that. Why won't you tell me what is going on? I'm worried about you."

The room suddenly seemed stifling hot and hard to breathe. "Damnit Raoul, no, listen to me, you didn't see me over the summer, nothing is wrong, I'm just worn out, that's all. Why can't you just stop asking all of these questions?"

"I'll stop when you tell me the truth!" His handsome face was earnest, and that worried crease between his eyebrows was hidden by a lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes, making him look tousled and young. Unconsciously Christine reached out to brush it from his face and let her fingers linger on his cheek.

"I'm sorry, Raoul, I can't tell you…"

He leaned in, his face so close to hers. "Tell me what?"

She bit her lip, the need to blurt the truth out so strong she could feel the words pushing against her teeth. "Tell you…tell you that…."

Suddenly there was a shrill beeping sound, loud and jarring, and the moment broke. Christine straightened up in her chair and shook her head furiously to clear her mind. No, she couldn't say anything, even if she desperately wanted to; saying something would put him in danger, would put both of them in danger, and the last thing she wanted was for Raoul to be hurt because of her.

The beeping noise was still there, and it was beginning to give her a headache. "What is that?" Christine asked, looking around her for the source of the noise. "It's so loud."

"Uh, Christine?" Meg had turned from her conversation with a tall brunette girl to point at Christine's purse. "I think it's coming from you."

"What?" Christine said, staring at her bag in disbelief, but after a moment she realized that the jarring sound was definitely coming from it.

"What the hell?" She muttered to herself as she dug through the bag. "What could it possibly be…"

She froze as the screeching object came into view. It was the package, the small, thin one that Erik had given her before she left. She had shoved it in her purse out of habit, knowing that it must be something of use or he would not have told her to keep it with her.

Meg and Raoul were peering over her shoulder as she ripped the packaging off to reveal the small dark object that continued to beep blaringly.

It was a phone, and it was ringing.


	25. First Return

**I received 14 reviews for the last chapter, and it didn't even have Erik in it. You guys amaze me and keep me inspired. Thank you.

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**Chapter Twenty Five: First Return**

"Is that your phone?" Raoul asked as Christine stared at it, her face white.

"I don't know," she murmured, then seemed to come to herself. "I mean…I have to take this call."

She stood up abruptly and nearly ran from the table. Raoul and Meg caught eyes and, after a moment, rose to follow her.

Christine pushed open the doors and rushed outside, the shrilly beeping phone still in her hand. She paused, scanning the street for a quiet place, before turning and darting into an alleyway next to the restaurant.

She stared at the phone for a few more seconds before shakily opening it. "H..hello?" She asked, her mouth dry.

"I was beginning to think that you weren't going to answer." His voice rolled out of the phone so smooth and clear, and she nearly gasped. Even after all of this time its beauty could still take her breath away, but she tried to push that thought out of her head and focus on the moment.

"What are you calling me for?" She said softly, her hands shaking.

"I told you I would contact you," his voice sounded almost amused. "I thought that now would be a good time to say hello, even though I did have to interrupt that lovely conversation with your…_friend._"

Perhaps it was the fact that she was outside, or that he wasn't standing right next to her, but instead of fear at his words Christine felt anger stir in her stomach. "How dare you," she hissed, her voice low. "How dare you watch me, even here? I'm out with my friends, and you…"

"I have every right to watch you with my rival," he said evenly.

Christine almost laughed. "_Rival?_" She asked, her voice rising. "He has _nothing _to do with this, I told you…"

"He has everything to do with this," Erik's voice had that same insufferably patient tone, as if he were trying to explain something simple to a child. "He saw you on the fourth of July. He _remembers._ He's asking you questions, trying to get close to you. He's dangerous."

"He's my _friend._"

"But he wants to be more, and that, my dear, makes him my rival." He paused for a moment as if thinking. "But you did not tell him anything, and you have not given him reason to pursue you. Continue to be cold to him and he will stay safe, so long as he stops asking questions."

"God damnit Erik, am I to be denied even friends?" Christine asked, anger making her less cautious. "You can't just call me and tell me what to do, you let me go, you have no right…"

"I chose to let you go," he said darkly, and she immediately fell silent. "And I choose to call you now, instead of coming for you in person. I am choosing not to harm your young man…for the moment. Don't forget that I _choose_ to do these things, I do not _have_ to do them."

"What about me?" Christine was almost in tears. Somehow, over the phone she was able to ask all of the things she had been afraid to ask before. "What about my choices?"

There was a pause. "Those, my dear, come later. Don't forget that there is a story that has yet to be played out." He was quiet for another moment, as if allowing her to absorb words she didn't really understand. "Please do not be angry with me," he said, his voice suddenly more gentle, wrapping around her like a blanket. "But it pains me to see you with him. He has everything, and he loves you, even if you do not love him. I do what I do because I do not want to lose you. I do not know another way."

"There's another way," she whispered, and she could almost feel his wry smile at the other end of the line.

"Not for me."

"Erik," she whispered, but he interrupted, his voice suddenly stronger, surer.

Now," he said. "I would like to see you again, like you promised. You will come to my house tomorrow night at eight."

"But how will I…"

"There will be a car waiting for you at your apartment. I'm sure that I don't need to say tell no one." He paused, and then almost inaudibly whispered, "Goodnight."

"Erik, I…" Christine started, but a buzzing filled her ears. He had hung up.

Christine closed the phone wearily and stared at it for a long time, before closing her eyes and clenching her fist around the small object.

"God damnit," she whispered, tears burning at the edge of her vision. She raised her head to the sky and shook her head, trying to clear her mind. "This is all wrong. Poor Erik." She sighed, and glanced down at the ring on her finger. "Poor me."

As she slowly pocketed the phone and turned to walk back into the restaurant, Raoul and Meg darted inside the building and into a hallway near the kitchens. They watched as she passed by, eyes downcast, to the table, before turning to one another.

"What the hell was that all about?" Meg asked when she found her voice. "Raoul, what's going on?"

Raoul turned to the small girl, who was still practically a stranger to him, and shrugged. "I don't know," he muttered. "But something is definitely wrong."

"Well of course it is," Meg snapped, exasperated. "I'd known even before she got back that something was wrong. It's not like Christine to go jetting off to another country and never even call. And now _this…_"

"Did you hear her?" Raoul's voice was low and tight as he mimicked her voice. _"How dare you watch me…Am I to be denied even friends?" _He paused. "She said 'you let me go.' She said…Erik. Poor Erik."

"Raoul," Meg said tentatively. "The ring…What does it all mean?"

"I don't know, but I have a feeling that it's bad...very bad."

Meg stared at him with determined eyes. "The first step is to find this person," she said with certainty. "Or at least find out who he is."

"Yes," Raoul agreed, running his hand through his hair tiredly. "We need to find Erik."

They turned and walked back into the restaurant, sitting once again at the crowded table on either side of a distinctly pale Christine, who was gulping down her Margarita at an alarming rate. She glanced quizzically at them but didn't ask where they had been, and they in turn pretended that the overheard phone conversation had never happened, that it was just an ordinary night out with friends.

The next evening Christine slunk out of the apartment at 7:45 with the excuse of going to the library to study. Meg eyed her as she left but didn't say anything; she pulled back the curtains at the window to watch her friend get into the backseat of a black car and disappear down the road.

The car wound through the city streets, carrying a tired Christine with it. He had not been in the car waiting for her, and that surprised her, but she felt better for these few minutes of contemplation. A small thread of worry wound its way in her stomach at the thought that if she reentered that house she might never leave, but she tried to push it aside. He had kept his promise before, and she would just have to act her part and pray that he kept it again. For some strange reason, she believed that he would.

Soon the car pulled into the parking lot of the familiar abandoned complex, and Christine felt a strange emotion, a mixture of anxiety and familiarity, wash over her.

'_I lived with Erik for four months,'_ she reminded and tried to reassure herself. '_I can handle this…I can handle him.'_

Christine walked to the side door as the car pulled away, and it opened easily underneath her hand, the gently upward sloping hallway lit with the same eerie light that had always guided her through the labyrinth. At the end, facing that familiar gray door, she had a sudden moment of panic, and nearly turned and ran back down the hallway. She gasped for breath, trying to steady herself, when the door sudden opened and he stood there, as always masked and immaculately dressed.

They stared at each other for a long moment in silence; his yellow eyes were wide, as if surprised to see her standing there.

"You came," he said almost inaudibly, then shook himself out of his stupor and gestured her into the house. She walked past him nervously; the room was too familiar, and it brought back to her a stifled memory of claustrophobia. The stagnant air of the house was nearly overwhelming, and she nearly choked as it lay heavy as a scarf around her throat.

He closed the door behind her, and the soft click of the lock rang like a gong in Christine's head.

"You look lovely," he said, sounding pleased, and she turned to face him. "Healthy. I am glad that being home has done you good." He walked toward her as he spoke, his beautiful voice soothing and pleasant, and raised one hand to trace the air around her cheek. "The sun has kissed you," he said softly.

Christine stared at him and held her breath. He was so compelling when he was gentle, his voice golden and achingly smooth. She realized suddenly that she had missed it. Despite everything, she had missed his sound.

"Thank you," she said, finally finding her voice. "It felt good to be home. I'm very happy, I missed it so much."

"I know," he said, then paused. "What would you like to do this evening? We can go out, we can do whatever you would like. I just…" He hesitated, as if the time apart had made him shy. "I needed to see you. But this evening is yours. I am just attending it."

His offer, so close to humility, left her speechless. Gone was any hint of a threat in his voice, any demands…except to be with her.

Mentally she slapped herself. _'Don't be fooled into illusions of equality,'_ she thought. _'He still has control…I can't forget that. I'm still a prisoner in his eyes.'_

Outwardly, she asked, "Is it because I came back?"

He understood her question immediately. "Yes," he affirmed, his voice warm, then added softly, "I want to make you happy now." Then, in an even softer voice, "I did not know if you would return."

Christine wanted to point out that he hadn't given her a choice, that had she not gotten into that car of her own free will he would have come for her. She wanted to say that she still felt like a prisoner, that he still hadn't given her the option of true freedom. She wanted to tell him that she was angry on the inside, and a little scared, but when he spoke to her gently she only wanted to listen. Instead, she brushed the black material of his shirt with her hand and said, "I would like to hear you play."

"Will you sing for me?" He asked, and she nodded.

"I will sing, Erik."

"Then I am content," he murmured, and led her into the music room.


	26. Unwanted

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry I took so long, but I got a review today from Allison that finally knocked me off my ass and made me update. Life has been...stressful, to say the least, but that's no excuse for letting this sit here idle. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, they all mean so much to me.

PS: this chapter is unbeta'd, because I just felt like I waited too long to post to wait even more, and I hadn't even gotten around to sending it to my beta. I'm sorry, TT! So if there are any spelling or grammatical errors, they're all me.

Please review!

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**Chapter Twenty Six: Unwanted**

He closed the piano lid softly, his long fingers stark white against the rich polished wood. He sat there for a moment, head bowed, hands spread spider-like across the lid, his dark figure so still, as if hearing something that she could not hear.

Christine stared at him, curious but unwilling to break the silence. They had sung for over an hour, his voice rising with hers in the air. She was shocked and breathless at how wonderful they sounded together; his smooth tenor wrapped around her soaring soprano, like the earth meeting the sky. Then suddenly he had stopped and closed the lid, his hands flat atop it and muscles clenched like he was holding it down or holding some great emotion in.

"Is everything okay?" she finally asked, taking a step toward him. He turned to face her, his eyes downcast.

"I am unused to experiencing such beauty, such…" he took a deep breath that wavered slightly in the air. "…happiness."

As usual he struck Christine speechless so easily. He spoke with a simple, humble eloquence that resonated deep within her long after he finished speaking, like ripples spreading outward in deep water.

She wanted to respond with something kind or profound; she wanted to tell him that she wanted him to be happy, or that his voice was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, especially when overcome with emotion. Christine opened her mouth and said, intelligently, "Oh."

He raised his feral eyes to hers and smiled then, as if understanding her bottled emotion. "There is something that I wish to discuss with you," he said, rising from the piano bench and turning in one graceful motion. "Will you join me in the other room?"

Mutely she nodded and followed him. '_Why can't I speak my mind around him?'_ she thought, frustrated. _'Sometimes when he speaks, my mind goes blank, and any gentle response that I might have gets lost in my head. I'm so vocal in fear and anger….and mute when I am faced with the beauty he creates. There are times…'_

She didn't let herself finish that thought; it was too dangerous. Instead she seated herself in her usual chair and watched him sink onto the couch. He steepled his fingers together as if in deep thought, and was silent for so long that she thought he wasn't going to speak. She felt her eyes start to close, heavy, her body exhausted after a long day.

"I want to do something for you," he said suddenly, snapping Christine awake. He was moving his fingers restlessly along the leather of the couch, as he always did when he was nervous. "Something to make your life easier. I have a gift for you."

Christine blinked and sat up straight in her chair, alert, unsure whether to be excited or hesitant over this information. "You do?"

He seemed to smile then, perhaps mistaking her nerves for enthusiasm. "I'd like to show it to you. But we need to leave the apartment."

There was a strange, hidden question in his statement, as if he was hoping that she would choose to stay, but she shook her head in a furious nod and stood. "Are we going now?"

He sighed at her response, softly, almost inaudibly, before rising. "If you wish."

They left the apartment in silence, arm in arm as had become their habit, like a gentleman and a lady, a courting couple of the past. When he took her arm she felt his hand brush hers and one long finger touch the ring, as if he wanted to reassure himself that it was there.

They exited through the back entrance and walked the short distance to his car, where he opened the door for her before sliding into the driver's seat. He seemed oddly in his element in the dark car, his back straight, hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead, totally in control. Not for the first time, Christine thought that he could crash the car if he wanted to, drive it off of a bridge, or less dramatically into a tree. Kill them both in one quick, smooth motion. Driving this car, he was in control of death, and that thought unnerved her deeply.

She snapped back to reality when he spoke. "I hope that your absence over the summer did not cause any problems for you. I'm sure it was difficult: questions, interacting with others….readjusting."

Christine wasn't sure how to respond. Of course it was difficult, she wanted to shout. Dodging questions, lying, lying through your teeth when all you want to do is fall down and cry and beg someone to keep you safe. Waiting every minute for that phone call or message that will pull you back into the darkness, into the stifling control of that god damned apartment with its dead smell, into a world without day, without time, only him and the music and the waiting. Having to explain, lie to your friends why you've suddenly started to get up every morning to see the sunrise, why you cry at the sight of the sun, at your old dingy apartment, why you're suddenly scared of the dark. Why you've lost so much weight, and have trouble sleeping. Why you talk to people as if you might not ever see them again, when you talk at all. Why you seem always afraid, tired, weak, like a broken doll, all helpless limbs and paper thin flesh.

"No," she said dully, staring out the window. "It was fine. I was able to get by."

"You're not a terribly apt liar, my dear," he said, and she looked at him.

"Yes, but what else can I say?" She said softly, her voice cracking, and he didn't answer. After a moment he turned a dial and soothing classical music filled the car, and they drove the rest of the short ride in silence.

As the car slowed to a stop Christine realized that they were near her apartment, probably only a few blocks away in the nicer section near the campus. The apartments were bigger here, as were the cars, and Christine felt a slow roil of apprehension and curiosity as he opened the car door for her.

"We're here," he said needlessly, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"What is it?" She asked, and he seemed to smile.

"Here, I'll give you the tour." Gingerly he took her arm, as if he was still afraid that she would brush him off, and walked her into the shadow of one of the apartment complexes and then, surprisingly, through a back door. They took the steps, up four floors, and stopped at a freshly painted white door with the number 42 on the front of it. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket, unlocked the door, and ushered her inside, closing the door behind her. She stood in the dark, furnished apartment, which was larger than anywhere she had ever lived, and stared at him with large eyes.

"What is this?" She whispered.

Casually he turned a switch and soft light flickered throughout the crème colored room. "It's for you," he said. He seemed somewhat diminished in the light, strange and wraithlike surrounded by tapioca walls and paintings of flowers, like she could blink and he would vanish.

She blinked, hard. He was still there.

"What do you mean?" She asked, disbelief in her voice. She knew it was the wrong thing to say but she blurted it out anyway: "Please, please tell me that you did not buy me an apartment."

He tilted his head at her quizzically, as if he could not understand her sudden short fuse anger. "Where you lived before was miserable, sharing that tiny room with another girl, sleeping with too many blankets because the heat didn't work, eating in that dilapidated kitchen. You need someplace better if you are to be on your own."

He said the last few words oddly and she knew that 'on her own' meant 'without him': living outside of that deathly house. Anger rose to the surface and flushed her face but she stamped it down and forced herself to speak calmly. Even after all of this time she did not want to risk yelling at him, angering him, crossing that line like they were equals.

"Why," she said through clenched teeth, though she tried to keep her voice even. "Why can't you talk to me about these things before you just do them? Why can't I make my own decisions ever? What if I don't _want_ an apartment?"

He tilted his head in the other direction like some strange dark bird. "Why would you not want an apartment?"

"Because it's _control_, Erik, it's more control and I can't handle it anymore." Her voice was beginning to crack.

His voice was calm, as if he were making a logical point that she refused to see. "You're misinterpreting me, my dear. I did this for you, as a gift for you. I though that it would make you happy."

His calm was maddening and she felt words slip out of her mouth unbidden; she was getting reckless. "No Erik, it makes _you_ happy. Everything you do is to make you happy. Don't you see that? You say you didn't want me in my apartment because it is small, and old, and cheap, right? Well here's what I think. I think that may be part of the reason, but what you're not saying is that you don't like me living with someone because you can't come and go as you please. I think that being alone in this apartment will separate me from my friends and maybe that's just what you want. I think that maybe this apartment has better access for you, maybe you even have cameras hidden in places so that you can watch my life like some fucking reality TV show. I think…"

"It is a _gift_," he interrupted, his voice tight, and she lost it. Every repressed, frenzied urge that had been bubbling inside of her for months escaped, purged out of her mouth like it was poison.

"What if I don't want your gift?" She yelled, and then, louder, more hysterical, "_what if I don't want it_?!"

There was silence immediately after her statement and her hands flew to her mouth as Christine realized how far beyond the line of safety she was. He was staring at her coldly through the slits in the mask, and another realization hit her. Rejecting his offers was rejecting him. Rejecting him was signing away her freedom.

Realizing the need to change the situation, she took her hands from her mouth and said in a small, apologetic voice, "Erik…"

"You will stay here," he said shortly, his voice frigid. "I will have your things sent over tomorrow. I will visit you whenever I wish to." His voice dropped slightly, sadly. "There are no cameras. I will not invade your privacy."

She opened her mouth to speak again but he turned away, his shoulders knotted and tense. "I will be back tomorrow. You'll find toiletries for tonight in the bathroom, and food in the refrigerator. Sleep," he paused suddenly, as if the breath had been knocked out of him. "Sleep well."

He walked toward the door and she wanted to say something, to call out or even to chase after him but her voice and legs wouldn't work. He left, dropping the keys on the counter and closing the door firmly behind him, leaving her all alone in the huge empty apartment.

She stared at the closed door for a long moment before her legs gave out and she sunk to the floor, crying weakly into her hands. She cried and cried, her tears disappearing into the soft unblemished carpet, though she wasn't sure if she was crying for herself or for him.


	27. Liberty and Limitations

**AN: I've been living in the terrible world of finals and then, even worse, no internet! But the summer is here for me, and as long as my internet stays functioning (which is not always a guarantee), I should be updating more often, probably once every two weeks as I finish this story.**

**I can not BELIEVE the amazing response for the last chapter: how utterly, fantastically, unbelievably amazing you guys are. You make my WORLD. I still can't even believe that this story has gotten to be so popular-- thank you!**

**So, after much ado, here we are with a new chapter. As always, thanks a million to my beta TT and please review and let me know what you think!**

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**Chapter 27: Liberty and Limitations**

It was the beginning of October. Outside of her window, Christine could see the leaves start to change, faint wisps of color mottling the heavy green even though the air was still languid and summer scented. She loved these in-between moments, when summer was over but it wasn't fall yet. She dreaded the winter, with its cold short days and long endless nights.

A beeper dinged softly and Christine pulled herself away from the window to take her steaming tea out of the microwave. She inhaled the dark, slightly bitter scent and smiled. She had to admit that there were perks to living in the new apartment, even though she would gladly give it up if she could go back to the way things used to be. '_Not that they were great,'_ she thought wryly, tipping sugar into her mug. '_And it's nice to have a new microwave…and decent water pressure in the shower. But it's still…'_

Her cell phone rang in the other room and her shoulder's dropped. "Control," she whispered, before stirring her tea and resolutely walking over to the phone.

She only realized that it was her old cell phone and not _his_ when she dug it out from under a mountain of schoolwork. She flipped it open without glancing at the number; there were only a few people that ever called her.

"Hello?" She asked, making room for herself among the homework papers strewn on the couch.

"Morning sunshine!" The voice bubbled out from the phone, and Christine felt herself truly smiling for the first time in days.

"Claudia!" She exclaimed. With college eating up their time they spoke to each other on the phone only about once a month, though almost daily over AIM.

"What's shaking?" Even on the phone Jammes sounded like the sun, larger than life. Christine sighed and settled herself into the couch.

"Where to begin?" she asked aloud, wondering what was safe to say. "Well, I got a new apartment."

"Really? That's amazing! Is it better than your old one?"

"Much," Christine said. "But I miss living with Meg."

"I'm sure it gets lonely," Jammes said sagely, then paused for a moment. "Hey, speaking of Meg, there's kind of an ulterior motive to this call."

Christine sat up nervously. "What?"

"Well, not that I wasn't going to call you anyway, love, but…well I got an email from Meg the other night."

Jammes and Meg had only been introduced once, over a year ago, when Jammes came to visit Christine, and they barely talked at all. Why did Meg contact her?

Claudia continued to talk. "She's really worried about you."

Nervousness began to swell in Christine's stomach. "Why is she worried?"

"She says you disappeared all summer and barely contacted her, and I agree hon, I did not appreciate being left out of the loop for four months with only a few measly emails. But I thought you were just sick. Meg seems to think that its more."

Christine tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "Go on."

"She says you've been acting really weird since you got back, really evasive. She wouldn't specify but she said she had seen and heard enough to make her really worried, whatever that is. Plus she thinks it's weird that you moved out so suddenly, without even telling her, and that you're living in a new place while still paying the rent at the old one. She thinks that you're in some kind of trouble. I don't know what to think, and she doesn't seem sure of herself enough to talk to you about it. She didn't ask me to call you. So what I want to know is…are you?"

Christine closed her eyes and tried to stay calm. "Am I what?"

"Are you in trouble?"

Christine bit her lip hard as she thought about her answer. Jammes had been her best friend since they were little; she had been there throughout all of the hardest times in Christine's life. They told each other everything, they had never lied to one another. If there was anyone she could tell, it was Jammes.

Christine took a deep breath. "No, no, I'm fine. Meg's just…" she nearly choked on her lie. "Being overdramatic. She worries about me too much."

"Are you sure, Chris?"

"Positive. I'm fine." Out of the corner of her eye she saw a dark shape, and something jolted in her stomach. "Anyway, I'd love to talk to you more but I really gotta go. So I'll talk to you later, ok?"

"Ok fine, just don't go disappearing on me again," Jammes said lightheartedly, and Christine forced a laugh.

"I'll try not to. I gotta go. Bye, Clauds."

"Bye Chris."

Christine closed the phone with a snap and set it slowly down on the couch. She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. "Good morning, Erik."

The dark shape moved languidly out of the other room and into her field of vision. "Good morning, Christine."

His visit was not a surprise. He had been visiting her nearly every day for the week that she had been living there, though she wasn't sure how he got into the apartment, as it didn't seem to be through the front door. He would just be there, sitting on the couch when she got back from classes, or moving silently among the rooms as she studied in the evening. Morning visits were rarer, and she wondered why he had come.

"How are you today," he asked cordially, like a gentleman, and she shrugged and sipped her tea.

"I just woke up a little while ago. Do you want some tea?" Both of them had been extra polite the past week, each trying to make up for perceived wrongs. Every time he arrived she would offer him a beverage, like a hostess, and every time he refused, probably because he found it difficult to drink with the mask on. But she asked anyway, as if each offered drink were an unsaid apology. _'Would you like a drink? I'm awfully sorry about screaming at you the other night. It's a lovely apartment. Please don't lock me away again.'_

He shook his head slowly. "No, thank you."

"Ok." There was silence for a moment as she sipped her tea and he stared at her, his eyes unfathomable. She was the first one to break. "So…why are you here?"

He took a seat in a chair a few feet away from her and seemed to consider her words intently. "There is something rather special that will be arriving in the near future, and I am unsure as to how to go about it," he said rather hesitantly.

Christine raised an eyebrow. "Something special?" She asked, and he smiled at her gently.

"Your twenty second birthday is soon, is it not?" he asked, amused.

"Oh." Christine had completely forgotten about her birthday in the blur of events of recent months. "That. It's still a few weeks away."

"Do you have any desires for that day?" he asked, tilting his head at her. "A birthday, I'm told, is something to be celebrated."

Christine glanced at him sharply. "When is your birthday?" She asked, and he shrugged elegantly.

"My father never saw fit to tell me, and I never saw fit to ask," he said. "I am not one for celebrations, especially of my own birth."

"Oh." Christine didn't know what to say. Sometimes she forgot just how sad his life had been. "Do you know how old you are?" she asked.

He seemed to smile slightly at her questions. "I have an estimate," he said, but offered no more information. "But we are speaking about you now, not me."

"Right," she said softly. "Well, my birthday is around Halloween, so I usually go to costume parties with my friends, but I don't know what I'll do this year."

"You do not wish to go a costume party?"

She shrugged. "I could, but they're never what I like. They're always stifled and crowded, a regular party just with masks. Everyone drunk. I guess I always hoped…" she trailed off and he leaned forward.

"Go on," he encouraged.

"It's silly, but whenever I go to a costume party I always hope that it will be something more, something _elegant_, like the old movies I would watch when I was a kid. Venetian masks and ball gowns."

"A masquerade?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Yeah, something like that. But I've come to realize that that's never going to happen on a college campus, and I don't want to put myself through another uneventful Halloween party. I'll probably stay here and relax, eat candy, something like that." She paused, thinking on her life of past months, and how nothing seemed as fun to her as it used to. "I guess I'm just not into celebrations anymore either."

"I see," he said softly.

Christine glanced up at him. "Erik," she started, "do you…"

The doorbell rang, clear and high, and shattered her words. Christine swung around to face the door, her heart in her throat. Who could that be? And how could she send them away without seeing Erik? The door had a clear view into the sitting room, and unless he hid whoever it was would get a good look at the masked man. What should she do?

"Who is that?" he asked calmly, and she glanced back at him. His words were relaxed but his body was tight, his hands curled tense around his knees.

Christine bit her lip. "I don't know."

He stared at her levelly, his yellow eyes boring into hers, and his voice took on a distinctive commanding tone. "Whoever it is, send them away. This is too pleasant a conversation to be ruined by an interloper."

She nodded and stood, still wondering how to send the person away without them seeing Erik, who didn't seem to want to move in order to hide himself. Slowly she walked over to the door as the bell rang again, and peered through the peephole. Her heart nearly stopped in her chest.

It was Raoul.

A strange numbness seemed to fill her body as she pulled away from the peephole and stared at the wood of the door. _'Oh God, oh God, what am I supposed to do?'_ She hesitated as long as she could, hoping that he would just go away, but he rang the bell a third time and her hand shot towards the door knob. She wanted to wrench open the door and scream at him to run, to run far away and never come back here, to never see her again.

Instead she opened the door a crack, so that she could just see his face and he couldn't see past her body, which was blocking the way in and shielding Erik from his view. Or him from Erik's.

"Raoul," she tried to sound as calm as possible. "What are you doing here?"

He started to smile at her but faltered at the look on her face. "Hey," he said lightly. "Meg gave me the address. I hope that's alright. Is, uh…" he tried unsuccessfully to peer past Christine. "Is this a bad time?"

"Yes," she nearly snapped. "I'm sorry, Raoul, but it's a very bad time. Please leave."

His forehead wrinkled in confusion and worry. "Is someone here with you?"

"No!" she yelped. "No, no one is here. I just can't talk now. I need you to leave."

"Chris," his voice was low and nervous and he tried again to see past her. "What's going on? What's the problem? Is something wrong?"

"No," she said, and then in a softer, more urgent voice, "Raoul, please, please leave. Just leave. Just go."

"Chris…" he started, trying to open the door but she held it mostly closed so he could only see her face.

"Please," she whispered, tears in her eyes, ice cold fear filling her lungs like dark water. "Oh God, please Raoul, just go. I'm fine. Go."

He paused for a moment, then nodded. "I'll be back later," he said, and walked reluctantly away. She watched him until he turned the corner, then slowly closed the door and locked it.

Christine stood facing the door for a long moment, listening to the silence of the apartment. She was still shaking, and her breath was ragged. Why did Raoul have to come here? Why did he insist on seeing her?

"I don't want anyone to get hurt," she whispered.

A hand fell on her shoulder and gently turned her around; she hadn't heard him get off of the couch but he was suddenly so close, his hand under her chin, tilting her head up to look at him.

"No one will get hurt," he said softly, and his feral yellow eyes were calm and oddly pleased. "I will not harm the boy, Christine."

It was as if a vice around her heart had suddenly been released. "You won't?" she said. She wanted to ask why but couldn't make out the words; he smirked and answered her anyway.

"He knows now that you are not his; I will not touch him. He is hurting himself far more than I ever could. Love is painful, my dear, and he is in agony. I am content."

She stared at him silently before lowering her eyes. She hated him in that moment, _hated_ what he was doing to her, but she forced her mouth to stay closed. If his arrogance kept Raoul safe, that was all that mattered. At least she could keep her friends out of her mess.

So she said nothing, and joined Erik on the couch again, and hated herself for it.


	28. October Haunts

**I'm back! I had hoped that over the summer I would have the time to write extensively, but work, fatigue, writer's block, and family problems have conspired against me to make writing very difficult right now. That's no excuse, and I need to get back on the horse with this story, but I just thought that you deserved an explanation as to why I vanished for so long.**

**Also, this is unbeta'd, as I never got to send it to my beta before posting (sorry TT!). So if you see any mistakes, they are all mine.**

**Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed and kept me inspired. Please continue to review, I'd love to see what you think as we continue with the story!**

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**Chapter Twenty Eight: October Haunts**

Two days before Christine's birthday and four days before Halloween Raoul approached her on the sloping lawn outside of the Computer Science building and asked, shyly, if she would be his date to the Masquerade.

Christine, ever so articulate when she was shocked, blurted out, "huh?"

He held a slightly crumpled piece of paper out to her and she took it, her fingers numb.

It was a flyer, the kind that covered the hallways on campus, and on its cover were two large, ornate masks done in ink, advertising a Venetian themed Masquerade, a Halloween ball thrown in part by the drama department. It was in two days: her birthday, and it cost to get in. It seemed very unusual, and rather expensive for a Halloween party: fancy costumes were necessary, and alcohol was prohibited. All of the music would be classical. It was perfect.

Which was exactly the reason that it scared her.

"This is…" she started, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip.

"Fantastic, isn't it?" Raoul asked. "It's the first time they've ever done anything like this. I hope it will become a tradition. I heard that they are going all out for it."

"Yeah," she muttered, her eyes still glued to the paper. "Fantastic…"

He cleared his throat nervously. "So, do you want to? Go with me, I mean. It should be a lot of fun, and it's on your birthday."

"I've noticed," she said, rather dryly. His blue eyes were staring at her so earnestly; she knew that he cared about her, she knew that he had to feel more than friendship for her. Christine wanted so badly to put on a beautiful dress and arrive at the party arm in arm with Raoul, and to dance with him, and feel safe and happy.

She shook her head. "I don't know if I can do that."

"But you'll be there, right?" He pressed. "You have to be there."

She shot him a sharp look. "Why?"

He blushed, a soft red flaring under his fair skin. "So I can dance with you," he said softly.

A warmth rushed to Christine's stomach and she had moment where she thought, '_so this is what it's like to be happy.'_ But then it faded and she wiped the silly grin from her face and turned away from him. She pursed her lips, trying to decide what to say.

There was a moment of silence where all she heard was the far off traffic and the October wind through the red and orange leaves. Then he spoke, his voice quiet and pained.

"Christine, I know that something is going on with you, and you won't tell me what it is, no matter how many times I ask. But there is one thing I have to know."

She turned slowly to face him and was surprised at the abject despair on his face. "What?" She whispered.

"Are you in love with someone?" He asked, as if forcing the words out. Christine stared at him, shocked, as he continued to speak. "I mean, I think that maybe that's what this is really all about. Maybe you love someone and you just don't…don't want to tell me…"

At that moment all she wanted to do was to cup his chin in her hand and kiss that pained, hopeless look off of his face. Instead she settled for shaking her head.

"No," she murmured, so soft that it was almost unheard. "No, I'm not. Things are…more complicated than that right now. I just need time, Raoul."

There was a pause, and then she said, slightly louder, "Please don't worry about me."

He gave a half laugh and touched her shoulder, but his eyes were serious. "I'll always worry about you, Chris. That's what someone does when they care. And if something's hurting you, even if you don't tell me, I'll find it and I'll…"

"No, you won't," she interrupted, her voice cold and matter of fact. "Like I said, don't worry about me, Raoul. I'm fine."

Giving him a small smile to take the edge off of her words, Christine scooped up her bag and began to walk away. After a few feet she turned, her expression thoughtful. "And I will be at the Masquerade," she said after a moment's hesitation, and began to walk again. "So maybe I'll see you there."

"You'll save me a dance?" He called to her. She shrugged without turning back to him, but inside she wanted that one dance so badly, enough to risk the whole world, enough to risk herself.

After all, she reasoned, it was her night, and she should be able to dance with a friend.

Christine sat through her next two days of classes listlessly, her mind focused on the Masquerade. She was sure that Erik had had a hand in it, but when she mentioned it to him he shrugged disinterestedly and asked for details, as if he didn't already know. Even so, there was something excessively smug and secretive about his actions in the past few days, and the night of the party she returned to her new apartment to find a dress laid out on the bed for her.

It was diaphanous and light, a molten gold color that matched the red and gold Venetian half mask that lay next to it. It was sleeveless, the material cut in layers to look both draping and ragged. Across the room a heavy red cloak lay across a chair, and Christine fingered it softly as she bit her lip and tried to figure everything out.

She didn't want to wear the outfit he had picked out for her; no matter how lovely it was, it was just a physical representation of the control her held.

She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the dress. It really was a beautiful dress, and obviously expensive…it would be a shame not to wear it…

She wanted to do something _rebellious_, she wanted to take scissors and cut into its golden layer, she wanted to take black markers and scribble all over it, draw cascades of musical notes over her arms and hands…

'_You're being stupid,'_ a voice chided in her head, her inner voice that was beginning to sound like Erik. '_You can't fight everything, you can't win anything.'_

"If I fight all the time," she whispered to herself, relieved that the voice in her ears sounded like her own, "I won't have anything left. I'll use up everything inside of me."

Her hands were shaking, and she ran them through her hair to calm herself. "Fine," she muttered, and stood to survey the dress. "Fine, this time…this time…I'll do it."

That evening she swept her hair up and slipped the gold dress over her head, feeling like a doll. Standing in front of the mirror, she slowly raised her arms to tie the mask around her face, and watched herself disappear.

She walked to the party, joining the throngs of other students on the streets in costume. Despite the cost of entry, it seemed as if most of the school was there, filling several floors of the large theater. The stage was a dance floor, with students spilling into the aisles, as was the open foyer and the large ballet rooms on the upper levels.

Christine wound through the crowd, simultaneously isolated and awed by the changes in the theater: everything seemed dark and sleek, all lacquered wood and smooth drapes and vases spilling exotic flowers. People pushed around her in costumes reminiscent of Venice in its heyday, brocades and silks and painted masks, things that she never expected to see on rowdy college students. It was as if the night had been constructed entirely for her, her dreams spun into reality.

"It's perfect," Christine whispered, standing lost in the crowd, and wondered if that was an amazing thing or a terrifying thing.

A hand brushed her shoulder. "Christine?" a voice tentatively asked in her ear, and she turned to see a white mask partially obscured by tousled blond hair. Blue eyes started at her from under it, their color heightened by stark white. "It is you, isn't it?"

Christine smiled and lifted the bottom of her mask to allow a brief glimpse of her face. "Hello, Raoul. Nice costume."

He was wearing a simple tuxedo with a white flower tucked into the lapel and the plain mask. "I wasn't sure what to do," he shrugged, and she was sure that he was blushing. "I thought I could pass as James Bond or something. But you….you look fantastic. What are you supposed to be?"

Christine hadn't even considered the idea of being a character. She thought for a moment and quietly fingered the gold material of the dress. "Persephone," she said finally and with more than a touch of irony.

"Ah," he said, and gave her a lopsided grin. "Before or after the pomegranate?"

"I'm not sure," she replied, a little sadly. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."

"Sounds good," he said, and reached to take her hand. "May I have this dance?"

Christine stared at their entwined fingers. "Sure," she said, and smiled at him. "I'd love to."

They moved into the foyer, which was packed with people dancing or talking or peering from behind fans like a Victorian romance novel. It all seemed so surreal and dreamlike, and as Raoul pulled her into his arms to dance she felt like she was floating.

His words pulled her back down. "Pretty great party, isn't it?" he said. "I've never seen anything like it. It's the grand ball you've always wanted. It's perfect."

She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "Let's just dance for a moment," she said. "I don't want to think."

"Of course," he whispered, and she felt his lips brush her hair.

They danced quietly for a long time, her eyes half open to let the costumes flow into a blur of unending color. She felt quiet and at peace, dancing with a friend, with someone who cared about her and wanted to protect her. She wondered, idly, as the masks passed by, if she really needed protecting. Her life had been on this path for so long it was nearly impossible to imagine it another way. And how strange and grand this story she was in, how tempting it was to slip into quiet acceptance and peace. Christine wanted to keep dancing forever and not think, and believe that her life was normal, and even more that her life was unchangeable, so that at least if she gave up hope she could finally stop fighting.

A familiar icy, beautiful voice broke into her thoughts, as it always did, and its intrusion was so expected it almost normal. "May I cut in?"

Raoul stopped dancing abruptly as she opened her eyes, and for a moment all she could see was red. He was standing there, swathed in maroon, the color of blood and deep sunset, with a cloak hanging rather majestically from his thin shoulders. His mask was white, but it angled and dipped in a strange, asymmetric way that was both grotesque and dizzying. The overall effect was stark and regal and bizarre, like looking into a fun show mirror, like looking at death.

Those impossible yellow eyes were fixed on Raoul, and she noticed that one long thin hand was wrapped tight around his wrist. "May I cut in?" Erik asked again, his voice the faintly amused superiority of one who knows he has the ultimate upper hand.

Raoul glanced uneasily between the two of them and the hand on his wrist. "Uh, yeah, I guess," he said, and backed up as his arm was released, his eyes on Christine. "I guess I'll see you over by the snack bar."

Christine nodded silently at him and faked a small smile before turning her head and accepting Erik's cold hand and strange, red clad embrace. They moved with the music and she realized that this would be the most they had ever touched.

"You wore the dress." His voice was supremely content. "Good. You look lovely."

"Thank you," she said quietly, and dared to raise her head to look at his feral eyes, somehow normal under the bizarre mask. "You planned this all, didn't you?"

He smiled gently at her, even though he had been denying it all week. "Of course. It's what you wanted."

"It's a little extravagant," she said, not sure if she was admonishing him or trying to keep him from doing something on that scale again.

He dipped his head near to her ear, fake black hair falling over the mask. "Haven't you realized yet that nothing is ever too much for you?" He asked, his voice shaking slightly. She blinked and swallowed, not sure of what to say.

"Well…thank you," she murmured finally. "It's beautiful."

"I'm glad that you approve," he said, and she could sense the smile in his voice.

They danced in silence for a few minutes as he hummed to the music in a voice that only she could hear. As she expected he was graceful, leading with surety as she held herself rigid. She would not allow her head to rest on his shoulder like she had with Raoul, and he did not seem to expect her too. It would have been an action too far beyond anything that was possible.

When he spoke it was with surprising uncertainty, so quiet that she had to lean in to hear him. "All of this," he said, his normally resonant voice sad, like a wilted flower. "This grandeur, this _dream_….does it please you? Truly?"

It was one of the only times he had ever directly inquired as to her happiness, and he sounded as if the question was indescribably important. Christine hesitated, choosing her answer carefully.

"It's a lovely dream, Erik, but that's all that it is. It's just a party. It's a _dream_ of life. It's an amazing night but it doesn't constitute the reality of my life."

"But it _could_," he insisted quietly, his eyes unnaturally bright in the dark opulence of the room. "I could make this real, make it _possible_. I can make a life, any life. Any dream can become reality if you have the power to change it."

"Erik," she said, and raised one hand to touch his false cheek, feeling suddenly and deeply sad. "You've proven to me that you do have power, so maybe you can change reality, maybe you can make dreams come true, fashion together a fairytale ending from nothing. I don't doubt you anymore. But even if it is possible, I don't want it. This life, this is _my_ life….God, Erik, my father's gone, my life is in shambles, but it's all I have. I don't want it taken away from me."

They had stopped dancing and stood, his arms still lightly around her waist, in the middle of the dance floor. He stared at her silently, his yellow eyes unreadable, his hands shaking slightly against her back.

"I want…" he began, staring at her through sad eyes. "I only want…"

Then, as if he could not choke out the words, he released her and brushed a cold hand against her cheek. "I am glad that you had a good night," he whispered, and turned and disappeared into the throng.

Christine stared after him for a moment, and a sharp pang went through her heart as she watched him go. She hated that he never finished conversations, that he couldn't talk with her like an equal; she wanted to talk to him, understand him, believe in him, but he always ran, and could not see the truth.

_'You're right, Erik,'_ she thought, thinking back on his unfinished words. '_You only want.'_

"Is everything all right?" Raoul had reappeared near her elbow and now stared at her masked face with worry. "Chris? Who was that guy?"

Christine shook herself out of her stupor. "Just a friend," she said, then turned to him. "It's too crowded in here; I feel like I can't breathe. Can you walk me back to my apartment?"

"Sure," he said, and took her arm lightly, as if he were afraid that she would break. "Let's get out of here."

They retrieved her cloak and his jacket from the makeshift coat room and emerged into the cool October air. As usual the sky was tinted with a milky reddish haze, and streetlamps dotted the sidewalk, but she wished that it was dark and clear enough to see the stars.

"You know," she said, turning her face to the sky and wrapping her arms around her body. "It's almost November again. A whole year gone. It feels like yesterday that I was so wrapped up in my exams, and worried about play auditions; Auntie V wasn't in a home, and we hadn't seen each other since we were children. A whole year. Should time go by so fast? Should so much change in a year?"

"What's really changed, Chris?" Raoul asked warily, and she giggled, feeling giddy.

"Everything." She spun in a circle, her palms to the sky. "Nothing." She started to laugh, feeling like small cracks and fissures were spreading outward throughout her whole body, cracking her like dry clay. "Hell, I even went to England!"

They were nearly at her door, and Raoul caught her hand. "Christine," he started in that hesitant boy-voice of worry. "I know I've said it before, but if something's wrong, if anything's wrong, you know you can tell me, right? No matter what."

"You keep saying that, Raoul, and each time it means nothing," she found her voice coming out hostile. "What do you want to do, save me?"

"If I can!" he said earnestly, grasping both of her hand between his. "I want to, Chris, if you'll only tell me what's wrong with you!"

"Raoul, you're a hero without a damsel in distress," she said quietly. "The truth is that I don't need any saving. I can't have people pulling the strings of my life. Not you, not anyone."

"Then what's going on?" he asked, exasperated. "Christine, what is happening to you?"

She gave another empty laugh and removed her mask gracefully, as if it were Erik's long fingers controlling her hands. "Dear," she said, "It is a tragedy."

He stared at her face under the dirty faded moonlight, at how hollow and wan she looked, circles under her slightly mad eyes, mouth thin and weak. "Chris," he started, but she shook her head.

"Don't try to save me, Raoul, not when I'm trying my damndest to save myself."

Then she gave him a smile, her eyes quiet and gentle again, and walked quickly to the apartment, leaving him alone with the darkness and the red sky.


	29. The Eavesdroppers

**Hello all. I present to you another unbeta'd chapter, again because I've been so busy I can barely write this, and also because I needed to post tonight. Tomorrow I'm going away for three weeks to work on an original book. Wish me luck!**

**This is an interlude chapter, heavy on the foreshadowing, and not my favorite to be honest, but it's necessary. Soon it'll get fast paced again—promise.**

**So read and review, and thank you so much as usual to my lovely reviewers. What you say means the world to me, and it keeps me inspired. Thank you.**

**Onward!**

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**Chapter Twenty Nine: The Eavesdroppers**

The first week of November was unseasonably warm and clear, an 'Indian summer', unnatural peace before the winter. Christine took to spreading a blanket outside on bright days and spending hours doing homework or just lying on her back, staring into the blue sky. Her pale skin slowly became flushed and pink, and she seemed happy.

Often Raoul would sit with her and talk; she was more relaxed in the sun, more like her old self, just as secretive but also playful and bantering. She said that she felt safe outside, and though he thought endlessly about that statement he couldn't figure out what she meant.

On the fifth of November they sat high on the hill of a nearby park, eating sandwiches and chatting, until the breeze picked up and they both shuddered with cold. He stood and scooped up his bag, offering her his hand, but she shook her head and smiled.

"I think I'll sit here for a little while longer, the sky is so blue today. I'll talk to you later, ok?"

"Tonight? We could do dinner or something," he offered, and she shrugged and picked up a book.

"Maybe."

Later that night he knocked on her apartment door, but there was no answer and when he pressed his ear against the smooth wood the inside was silent. Frowning, he tried the library, then her old apartment, wondering if she wasn't with Meg.

The small girl opened on the second knock and shook her head at his question. "No, I haven't seen her all day. She hasn't come around often since she moved out. Why, is something wrong?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "No, I don't think so, I just can't find her, and I was hoping that we could hang out."

Meg leaned against the doorway and crossed her arms. "Could she be at the library?"

He shook his head. "No, I checked."

She sighed. "Maybe she's with her mystery man."

He looked at her sharply. "Do you think so?"

Meg shrugged. "I don't know anymore. I feel like I don't even know _her _anymore. I think we may have to face it, Raoul: this might be a mystery we can't figure out. Maybe we should…"

"Let it drop?" He finished for her, and then shook his head vehemently. "I've thought about that before, but I can't. You haven't seen the things I've seen, Meg, you haven't seen how _scared_ she is sometimes. I believe that something is really wrong."

Meg was silent for a moment. "But what can we do about it?" she asked quietly, and he took her hand.

"First of all, we have to find her. Come on."

He started pulling her out the door before he realized that she was in her pajamas and shoeless, and consented to wait a few minutes while she changed. There was a fierce intensity to his voice that surprised even him, and he felt hugely, justifiably like a hero. Christine had claimed that she didn't need saving, but he knew she did, and he would be the one to rescue her.

Raoul fairly dragged Meg out of the building and across the campus. She jogged lightly to catch up, her short legs quickly growing tired. "Where are we going?"

"To the park; it's the last place I saw her. Maybe there we can find some clues or something, figure out where she went after that."

"Clues?" Meg asked, tugging at his sleeve to slow him down. "Raoul, we're not detectives. We wouldn't have any idea what to look for!"

He glanced down at her and for a moment his eyes were old, sad. "I know, but I don't know where else to look."

Meg stared at him and felt his helplessness and his hope, like a ship that was about to fall off the edge of the world. "Alright," she nodded, needing something else to focus on beyond her worry for her friend and Raoul's lost eyes. "Let's check out the park."

His old determination flickered across his face, and he gave a half smile before starting off again.

It took them ten minutes to walk there, and in that time Meg heard increasingly distraught rants about all of the possible things that might have happened to Christine. He fell silent as they approached the hill where he had last seen her, and as Meg opened her mouth to ask a question he suddenly grabbed her arm.

"It's Christine," he hissed, both surprised and worried. "Oh my God, she's still sitting there."

"What?" Meg peered through the darkness. "That is so bizarre. It's been like….over seven hours. What is she still doing here?"

"Let's find out," he stated, starting to walk up the hill, but this time it was Meg who grabbed him and yanked him to the ground, nearly pushing his face into a large rhododendron bush.

"Check this out," she whispered frantically. "There's someone else here."

A lone shadow was moving toward her still form and as they crept closer Raoul could just barely see her face turn to smile weakly up at it.

"Hello," she said, and her voice carried clearly across the empty space, drifting to where they crouched behind the scraggly bush. "I was wondering when you would come."

A voice—_that voice_, he recognized it, where had he heard it before?—spoke, its sound oddly muffled but still achingly beautiful. "You never went back to your apartment. I was worried."

"I was looking at the sky, at the stars," she said, her voice dreamy and a little sad. "Sit and watch them with me."

The shadow paused and then sat, a slow folding of limbs that in the darkness seemed disproportionately long. Christine was leaning back on her palms, her head tilted upward, face wax pale in the moonlight.

"Everything is so quiet," she said, and the figure shifted.

"You were waiting for me," it stated, that lyrical voice still jarring Raoul with its familiarity. "Why?"

"I like you when you're outside," she said simply. "You're more real to me."

"Is it important that I am real?" The question seemed almost cautious, like testing thin ice over cold water.

"Oh Erik," she sighed, and suddenly the realization hit Raoul; the puzzle pieces, the name from the phone call and the man from the dance, suddenly fell into place and he had to stifle a gasp. Next to him, Meg stiffened.

"Erik," she said again, and turned to face him. "You should know that reality is all I want. I want…." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, like she had been holding it in for a long time. "I want to be able to sit outside all day and all night if I want to. I want to see the sun rise every day. I want to get up and make tea and struggle through classes and be unhappy and lonely and free and…real. Even if it hurts. Even if sometimes I want to give up."

The voice was gentle when it spoke, and a little sad. "You've said this before. What do you really want to say?"

She leaned back and closed her eyes, and under the pale light of the moon looked like a dead child. "Why me?" she whispered. "I've wanted to ask for so long. More than my voice or whatever initially drew you to me… underneath that, deeper than that…why me?"

"I believe that we are alike," he murmured. "And in being alike I believe that you can understand me, that you can save me."

"You want me to save you?" her words were a broken laugh.

"No one can be alone forever, Christine," he said, almost too softly for them to hear. "No one can survive alone. You of all people should know that."

She was quiet for a long time, so long that Raoul was beginning to think that she had fallen asleep, but finally she asked, "Why do you think that we are alike?"

He spoke swiftly as if he were purging something, exhaling words that he had wanted to speak for a long time. "You have a great sadness inside of you that you feel is eating you from the inside, swallowing you up…it has been there ever since your father's death. You have no ties in this world, no one who cares for you, save me. You sing not because you love to but because for those few moments you can forget and become someone else, someone different, stronger…"

"Stop it," she whispered suddenly, but he pressed on.

"When you sing you feel as if your soul is rising up and you believe that if you can just _express that talent_, make a difference with one thing, just that one thing, then your life will have meaning and the… satisfaction and pride will fill the empty space that has been eating away at your sanity and you hope that in place of love and happiness you could have talent, and it would _be enough_…"

"Stop it," she whispered again, and this time he complied. "That doesn't make me like you."

"Oh Christine," he let out what could have been a pained laugh, or a sob. "That makes you more like me than you want to admit."

"Maybe," she whispered, as if her heart were breaking, and the sound carried liltingly on the wind. "I just never imagined this happening to me."

"Before I met you," came his soft reply. "I never imagined I could feel."

"What happens next?"

Raoul wished he could see her face clearly, because he understood nothing from her tone; she could have been wistful, or resigned, or sad, or content, he couldn't tell.

"We go home," the man said with finality. "And you go to sleep, and tomorrow you wake up and watch the sun rise. Life continues, Christine, and you…you will be happy."

"I suppose," she said, and shifted before standing up. He stood with her, and Raoul watched as his hand, shadowed and eerily elongated in the moonlight, took hers as she gathered her blanket.

And then, right before they walked away, the man turned, and Raoul, heart beating wildly, jerked behind the bush as two yellow lights stared right at him.

"Is everything all right?" Christine asked, and he turned back to her.

"Everything is perfect, dear," he said, a certain smugness to that beautiful voice. "Shall we go?"

"Mmm," she murmured in affirmation, and they moved hand in hand in the opposite direction, disappearing rather gracefully into the night.

When they were out of site Meg turned to him with wide eyes. "Raoul, he looked right at us!"

"He looked right at me," Raoul corrected darkly, and Meg bit her lip in thought.

"I can't pretend to even begin to understand what just happened," she started, tilting her head to the sky pensively. "But they did seem rather…serene. Maybe she's really ok, I mean they just sat and talked and were peaceful. If they can sit and talk like that, how bad can it be?"

"I don't know," he replied, his brow furrowed. "You're right, we don't know the truth, and they _were_ peaceful, but…"

He took a deep breath. "But I just can't help but wonder if this is the calm before the storm. There was something wrong with that situation, with what they were saying, with her tone of voice. No matter what they looked like, something was wrong."

"Maybe this isn't our battle to fight," Meg suggested gently, and his shoulders sagged.

"I won't interfere," he said softly. "She's already made it clear to me that she doesn't want my help. But that won't stop me worrying, and if she ever asks me…I'll be there by her side."

Meg didn't answer, but stared at the stars for a long moment before standing and brushing her knees off. "Come on," she said. "Let's get out of here. I think I've had enough weirdness for one night."

Raoul rose and followed her small figure, his mind wandering as she tried vainly to make upbeat chit-chat. He couldn't shake the feeling, the instinctual premonition of danger, the drumbeat in his head that sounded '_soon, soon_.' He knew, deep in his worried heart, that this calm moment under the stars wasn't going to last forever, and when it ended…

When it ended it would encompass them all.


	30. November Hurts

**I'm back, after a long absence, to thank everyone for sticking with me and letting me know that you are still reading this story. Thank you everyone who has reviewed, and everyone who is reading. I will finish this story, I promise.**

**Please review, as we get darker and the end is almost in sight...**

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**Chapter Thirty: November Hurts**

The only time when Christine was wholly and completely happy was when she was singing. She would stand by Erik's piano in his dim, dead house, close her eyes and sing, and everything that she feared seemed to melt away within the music. Erik himself was less frightening at these times, his fingers moving smoothly over the black and white keys, his eyes trained on her face, on her posture. He barely had to critique her anymore; she sang like it was breathing, like it was her heart beating: natural, flawless.

One cold day in late November he closed the piano lid and asked, very politely, if she would like to stay for lunch. It was a Saturday, and Christine had only an empty apartment to go back to, so she agreed.

They had been doing this dance for a long time now, avoiding stepping on each other's toes. He wanted to make her happy, and she wanted to keep her freedom, so it worked, even if it was hard sometimes.

She watched Erik make a sandwich, amazed at how even this simple action was graceful on him. His back was to her so she let herself stare, watching his thin chest move as he breathed; she liked these little reassurances that he was indeed alive, and not some phantasm.

"You are doing so well," he said as he placed the plate on the table. "I think that you are ready now for any stage in the world, though for the moment you will have to content yourself with the University theater."

Christine sighed as she sat and nibbled on her sandwich. "I don't know about that."

"Oh?" His tone was surprised, and guarded. "You aren't saying that you don't want to sing?"

"Oh, no!" She said, waving the idea away with one hand. "It's just that…well, with everything that has happened with the theater department at the University, I don't think that it would be a good idea for me to try out there again."

"Why not?" He sat down across from her, as usual not eating.

"Well first of all, after acting the way I did last year I'm a bit ashamed to show my face again. And really, after everything that you did, as well. I would be worried that if I was cast it would only be because they were afraid of you. Or, if not cast, it would only be because they wanted to snub me as a show of power to you."

"These are all very childish doubts to have, my dear, if you'll forgive me saying so," Erik said in a patronizing tone. He drummed his long fingers lightly on the dark table, an elegant and restless movement.

Christine shifted in her chair, feeling like a child who had just been told off. "What do you mean?"

"I won't even address this nonsense about you being ashamed to go back. Ashamed, with a voice like yours? You could act like a diva and still return with your head held high. Other people should never bring you down.

"As for your second and third worries, they are nonsense because you will be cast. Whether silly little men with no taste or real understanding of music, who run the department on a basis of favoritism, want you to be cast is irrelevant. You have the voice to be cast, and so you will. Your talent is what matters."

Christine frowned at him slightly. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

He sighed, a quiet, mournful sound. "I mean that if they choose not to cast you because of me, then they will find themselves forced to cast you because of me."

"No," she said simply, putting down her sandwich. "No, I don't want you to do that."

"Christine," he said, in a slightly clipped tone, "it does not make a difference. If you deny yourself to the world for the sake of a few worthless men then all of my training will have been for nothing. Do you want that?"

"I won't have you interfering on my behalf," Christine stated, and he frowned.

"You have to understand how the world works, Christine. It is a harsh place; it is not just about talent. The people in charge are in it for the money, not the love of the art. It is a bad way for the world to be, which is why the truly accomplished have found a way around it. They know someone, they pay someone off, they do whatever it takes to get the part. You are lucky: you have me." His tone grew darker. "Most artists would give anything for influence like mine."

"Then cater to them!" Christine said, standing up, her sandwich forgotten. "I won't have it, I don't want it." She paused for a moment, thinking. "Here is my compromise," she said at last. "I will try out for the University production if you promise not to interfere with the casting. Agreed? Be honest with me, Erik. Can you do that?"

He thought about it. "No," he said gravely. "No, I can not stand back and watch your voice be ignored by those pompous fools."

"Then I won't audition," she said simply, crossing her arms. "I refuse."

He stood as well, his shoulders tensed and dangerous. "You refuse?"

"I do," she said, her voice faltering a little. "I don't care if everyone else in the world would do it, I can't. It goes against everything that I've worked for, everything I believe in. I've worked so that my talent would be good enough to be noticed by the people in charge, not just by you."

"I _am_ the people in charge!" he said, raising his voice. "Haven't you learned that yet? Do you think that there is a single major theater in this country that isn't in some way subservient to me?"

Christine was silent for a moment, shocked. She supposed that she should of thought of this eventuality, but the idea that she would not even be free from him in the theater world had never crossed her mind. "I see," she said slowly, sadly. "So I'll never get the chance to just showcase my talent. No one anywhere will ever see just me; it will always be me….and you. I see." She paused for a moment, infinitely sad. "Silly me," she murmured. "To think that I could go through the world as a normal person."

"But you are not a normal person," Erik said, suddenly peaceful. He walked to her side of the table and traced the air around her face as he often did when he was emotional, his fingers so close but not touching her pale skin. "You are far from normal; you deserve a life that is better than normal. You deserve fame and adulation."

"Not like this!" She whispered. "I never wanted my success to be like this."

"This is the way the world works, dear," he said, and she knew what he meant even though he didn't say it: _get used to it._

"I want to do this on my own," she pleaded. "I need to do this without your interference. I need some part of my life to be mine! Without you…"

"Without me you are nothing!" He hissed, suddenly angry, but then his tone softened into something cold and hollow. "I've heard enough of this. You will collect your things and we will return to your apartment, and you will audition for the musical at the University. You will do these things and we will not speak of this again."

He moved as if to leave the room, his shoulders knotted, but Christine slammed her hands down on the table, a furious sound in the silence.

"No!" She yelled, her face flushed. "No, that's not what is going to happen! No, Erik, I won't do it! This is my life!"

He swung back around to face her, his hands curled into fists at his sides. "You say that so often," he said, his voice still ice cold and calm. "But what you fail to remember is that you had no life before me. You were miserable, and alone, and on the verge of suicide when I found you."

"I never…" she started, but he cut her off.

"Oh, you thought about it, Christine, don't lie to me. I know everything about you. You were dying; I lifted you up, I brought you back to life, you _need _me."

She was crying now, her hands on her head in frustration and anger. "No, Erik, you need me. This is all about you, everything is about you! You think _I'm _the one with issues? You have so much power but you're alone, all alone, so you drag me down with you, you control me, and my voice, and my future, and say it's all for me…"

"It is," he said in a low voice, but for the first time she cut him off.

"No it's NOT!" She screamed. "No, no it's not! How many times do I have to say it? I want my own life, I don't need this and _I don't need you!"_

She had been holding it in for so long that the words burst from her without her permission, an explosion of pent up anger and sadness that had been building since the day she overhead the directors whispering about her in their office. She couldn't control those hurtful words, and she knew as soon as they had left her mouth that she had made a horrible mistake.

The room had gone silent after her last outburst, and the very air in the kitchen seemed colder, the room darker. Christine covered her mouth with her hands and tried, desperately, to right what was so very wrong.

"Oh God, Erik, I'm sorry…" she whispered, but he turned his back on her, his emaciated shoulders shaking either from tears or from rage.

After another long moment, in which Christine could hear only her own breath and heartbeat, he turned and looked at her. Slowly, like a predator stalking prey, he approached her, his footfalls silent and yellow eyes mad; he put his ice hands on her shoulders and shoved her against the wall, hard.

"You're right," he whispered, his voice deadly soft and deeply frightening. "Perhaps you don't need me, but I thought that I had made this clear a long time ago: I need you, and you are never, never going to leave me. You are never going to push me aside." He bent his masked head to her ear and said, so quietly, "I will do whatever I have to do to keep you. Don't ever think that you can get away from me, and don't ever think that you are anything else but _mine._"

He let her go and made to walk from the room, but paused in the doorway. "It is a pity that you had to spoil such a pleasant day," he said, his lovely voice odd and disconnected. "Now get your things together and get ready to leave. Be thankful, my dear, that I'm letting you go home at all."

The moment he left the room her legs gave out; with a little wobbling jerk she slid to the floor, hands over her face, sobbing. Reality hit her hard, like a punch to the gut, leaving her breathless: how, _how_ could she have been so stupid? What had she been thinking these past several months? She had let herself slide into naïve, peaceful acceptance because it was easier than fighting; she had accepted this farce as her life and let herself believe that it could work out, that because he treated her kindly they were equals. But she had always been a prisoner, just with a different cage, a blindfold wrapped around her eyes for so long that she forgot the possibility of light.

In that moment Christine saw all of her flaws and weaknesses; she saw how pathetic and beaten she had become, and she felt, for the first time, a desperate, painful determination rise like fire in her chest.

She had to get away. Even if it failed, even if she had to leave everything behind, even if she died, she had to get away, before this twisted game that was her life got any worse. Running was her only hope.

Suddenly, as if she had always known but just forgotten, she knew what to do, and who could help her.


	31. December Fears and Plans

**AN: I am aliveeeeee! And full of remorse for not finishing this story earlier. Forgive me, dear readers. My excuse? I have now completed and am in the process of revising my first novel, and it's difficult to tear myself away from. But I promised that you would have an end to this dark little story, and an end you shall have, though we still have a few chapters to go. Oh, and I am beta-less, so forgive any typos I might have missed.**

**Enjoy!**

**Chapter Thirty One: December Fears and Plans**

Christine mentioned it casually to Raoul a few weeks later, as if it was an afterthought. "I might be at the park tomorrow afternoon," she said when he called one evening to say hi. "Meg and I. We're going to watch the children skate and drink hot coco. You could stop by, if you are in the area. I know Meg would love to see you."

"Yeah, sure, I'll try," he said, his voice over the phone tinny and enthusiastic. She pushed her hair from her face with a shaking hand, her bare toes curled anxiously on the tiled kitchen floor.

"Ok, cool, well, you know…no big deal," she said, her voice mumbling and awkward. "I guess I'll talk to you later, Raoul."

"Talk to you later, Christine," he said, and the normal, inelegant way that he said her name made her want to break down and weep.

She clicked the phone off and set it gently onto the table, trying to calm her breathing. Raoul would come; she knew he would, and that was the first step. Confident in his upper hand, Erik did not have a problem with her seeing Raoul with a group of friends; in fact, she believed that he almost liked it, knowing that for Raoul, being around Christine without having her must be torture. It made Erik feel like he won.

For the first time, Christine was able to use his false confidence against him.

Over the past weeks she had been passive, agreeable, even affectionate; her eyes downcast, Christine had used her acting skills to gently cultivate the image that she was broken. Docile smiles and vaguely sad tones replaced her previous thrashings, giving her the resigned air of someone who had finally accepted their fate and was trying to deal with it. Erik, so desperate for the fighting to be over, so desperate to have her for his after more than a year of pain and increasingly tightening control, believed her.

He wanted her to be broken so that he could rebuild her: she could see that now. But Christine was building her defiance into a fire, stoking it in her chest even as she smiled sweetly at him and they talked about books and sang in his dead apartment. She soldered her fear and anguish into steely resolve. Every day, she looked at her wan face in the mirror and silently repeated her mantra:

_'I am not broken. I am not broken. I am whole.'_

The day after the phone call Christine dressed warmly, tucking her jeans into thick boots and wrapping a brightly patterned scarf around her throat. She made sure that each item was one she had purchased herself, and dressed in the bathroom with the door closed, discreetly checking each article of clothing for bugs. She did not carry a purse.

When she opened the downstairs door the blast of frigid air hit her bare head as she pressed her body against the wind. After the long Indian summer, winter had come fast, striking with a vengeance and turning the streets into sheets of ice. The arctic air numbed her nose and brought a bright flush to her pale cheeks; head bowed, Christine moved through the afternoon crowds and pressed numb fingers to her frozen face. _I am alive,_ she thought, giddy with the cold and the Christmas carols that blasted out of nearby shops. '_I'm alive and it's Christmastime and I want to appreciate every single moment because if this fails I may never…'_

She didn't finish the thought.

It was one o'clock when Christine reached the park, one o'clock on a bright Saturday in early December with the sun shining through the cold and all the shadows banished from the skeletal, ice-laden trees. Meg was already there, skating; Christine had strongly intimated that she stay on the ice for as long as possible and flirt with as many cute guys as she could. Meg enthusiastically agreed.

Sitting alone by the frozen pond, Christine checked her watch and waited, eyes on the swirling children with their bright-colored scarves and hats. It felt so good just to sit and breathe and watch life tumble all around her.

It was nearly two when a steaming paper cup hovered into view. "God, you look frozen," said a familiar voice. Christine looked up at him, her nose a bright red.

"Only a little," she said, smiling. She reached for the cup and felt it seep warmth into her hands. "Mmm," she said, inhaling deeply. "Hot chocolate?"

"And roasted chestnuts," Raoul said, whipping a paper bag with the greasy treats from under his coat as he sat next to her. "Thought you might be hungry. Where is everyone?"

"Meg's skating," she said, pointing to the dark haired girl trying to chat up a group of hockey players. "So it's just me."

"All alone?" he asked, dipping his hand into the warm chestnut bag. "That's a lonely way to spend your day."

"I'm not alone anymore," she said, taking a chestnut of her own, and with her eyes downcast she felt rather than saw the delighted smile light up his face.

"So what's up?" he asked casually, and Christine felt her heart rate rise. This was the moment she had simultaniously been dreaming of and dreading.

"Raoul, I want you to do something for me," she said, her voice calm and even. He raised an eyebrow.

"Sure," he said, reaching for another hot chestnut. Christine's hands began to shake.

"I am going to tell you something very important, and no matter what I say, I need you to promise me that you are going to keep smiling and eating chestnuts like nothing is wrong. Do not raise your voice or act surprised, and do not draw attention to yourself. No matter what, keep smiling. Will you promise me this?"

He was silent for a moment. "What's going on, Christine?" he asked tentatively, shifting on the hard bench, his knees nearly touching hers. "What's wrong?"

"Promise me!" she hissed, still smiling, a fake, cold smile that didn't reach her eyes. He nodded, slowly.

"Ok, I promise." When she was quiet, he bared his teeth. "Look, I'm smiling."

Something desperate flickered behind her eyes as she stared at him. "Raoul, I'm in a lot of trouble," she said, slowly taking a sip from her steaming cup as her eyes cast about the park, looking for shadows. She didn't hope to keep the meeting from Erik; on the contrary, the more open she was about it the less questions would be asked. Everything was carefully planned; even Meg's presence on the ice was a reassurance to any jealousy that could arise over the meeting. The area that they sat in was bright and sunny, with families lingering nearby but none close enough to hear their whispered conversation. The sunlit open space, the crowds of children and happy families, and the lack of security cameras made this the best possible place for a clandestine conversation. Haltingly, she began to tell him the truth, or as much of the truth as she could.

Smiling fakely, Christine told her childhood friend that there was a very dangerous man who was threatening her life, a man who had immense commercial and political power. She used the word 'threatening' to convey a sense of physical danger without having to mention the specifics: that he loved her, that he kidnapped her, that he taught her how to sing. She stressed the danger, pushing on Raoul the fact that if he helped her and This Man found out, Raoul could die. She did not use specifics, only vague warnings. She did not mention that he wore a mask.

"Is this the man you were with on the hill? Is this Erik?" he asked at one point, eyes serious, and for a split second Christine dropped her fake smile.

"_Don't ever say that name!"_ she exclaimed a little too loudly; a few people turned to glance at her, curious. Forcing her face into a relaxed pose, she took a sip of her coco. "Where did you hear that?"

"We followed you, Meg and I," Raoul said, and to her relief he remembered to keep smiling. "Heard you talking on the phone one night. You said, 'poor Erik.' We saw you on the hill last month, too, and the person who sat by you and said something about 'going home.' What is really going on, Christine? What aren't you telling me?"

"He loves me," she whispered, her voice broken even as her teeth shone pearly white in the sunshine. "He loves me and if he ever finds out that you know his name, that you've seen him, oh God…"

"Go to the police," Raoul said firmly. "Why this act? Why meet here, with me? Just go to the police and…"

"I tried that!" she exclaimed, trying to keep her voice soft. The wind bit at her hands, numbing them, making the delicate skin dry and crack with cold. "Months ago. I tried. The police…" she took a deep breath. "They _work _for him, Raoul. Everyone does. He has cameras, bugs, wiretaps, and any combination of these could be anywhere at any time. You have no idea how powerful, how _dangerous _he is. I can't trust anyone except you."

Raoul was silent for a long moment. Christine took another chestnut and slowly put it in her mouth as she observed the way his eyes stared off into the distance, unfocused, their beautiful blue color heightened by the sunshine. His hatless head was a mess of blond hair, strands of which waved in the frigid wind and drifted into his eyes, though he was too lost in thought to push them away. The old familiar wrinkle was once again situated firmly between his eyebrows.

"Why are you telling me this now, Christine?" he finally asked, tearing his gaze from some unknown point to look at her red and frozen face.

"I need your help," she said, and discretely wiped away a warm tear that was leaking out of her eye. She didn't want him to see it, but he noticed anyway and in that moment it seemed to hit him that she was telling the truth, that this nightmare of hers was real and that, finally, she needed him.

"I'd do anything for you, Christine, you know that, but after everything you've told me…" Raoul looked at her, forgetting to smile, his gaze desperate and unhappy. "What can I possibly do?"

"I have a plan," she said. "You're the only one who I trust to help me. I can't let anyone else know, not even Meg. It would put her in too much danger and I can't..." her voice broke as she looked at the swirling figure of her friend on the ice. "I can't do that to her. I can't even believe that I'm going to ask it of you, but..."

He stared at her, waiting for more. She made a frantic motion at her face and he shook his head, smiling in an forced easygoing fashion. Breathing a sigh of relief, she continued.

"A police officer once told me that His power extends only to the borders of this country. That the only way I could every truly escape would be to leave it. I'm going to test his theory. I need someone to get me there." She looked at him seriously, stressing the words. "Just transportation. I'm not asking you to give up your normal life for me. Once I am over the border you will leave me and I will make my way to an airport headed for…somewhere. Then you would have to hide too, go to Europe or something, just for a little while, but if we play our cards right He won't ever know that you helped me."

"Leave the country?" he asked in shock, his jaw hanging open just a little. "For good? Christine, how will you live? How will…"

"I'll find a way," she said firmly. "Will you help me, Raoul? Will you help me regain my life? I can't do it without you." They both knew that in her desperation she was manipulating his emotions, his desire to protect her, but at this point neither one of them cared.

He looked at her blearily. "Canada?"

She shook her head, blond hair obscuring her face. "No, it's too secure, too many cameras." She glanced up at him from behind lowered eyelashes, barely moving her mouth, her voice quiet. "Raoul, I need you to get me to Mexico."

It was at that moment that Meg appeared before them, red faced and smiling. "Hey guys," she said, brushing her black hair out of her eyes, skates dangling from one hand. "What'd I miss?"


	32. The Anxious Christmas

**AN: All I can say is, this story will be finished, I promise, hopefully sooner rather than later. Most likely my next post will be from Ecuador, where I'll be spending the next two years in the Peace Corps! I leave in one week. Wish me luck, and don't worry, I'll at least occasionally have internet access there. Expect another chapter in shorter time than it took for this one to come out.**

**As always, please review to let me know what you think. I read and appreciate every single word.**

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**Chapter Thirty Two: The Anxious Christmas**

"Here we are, Auntie V," Christine said as she pushed open the door with one foot and navigated the wheelchair inside, a shopping bag nestled under one arm. "Home sweet home, remember?"

"Of course I do, dear," V said, indomitable as always as she pushed herself out of her wheelchair and collapsed regally on the threadbare couch. "Now get me a cigarette, would you? They won't let me have any at the home and I'm just been dreaming about one for months."

Christine hesitated, then flashed a fake smile and went into the kitchen to find an old pack. She wanted to protest, to say _'Auntie V, you need to watch your health'_, but as she looked at the little woman, just a shell of what she once was, Christine couldn't deny her this one happiness.

Like the house, with its dusty, moth-eaten smell and white sheets over the tables and chairs, V had a cracked and neglected air about her. Her body was diminutively frail despite the nursing home's reassurances that she was getting enough to eat; her eyes were huge and owl-like in her face. At times, like now as Christine handed her a cigarette and helped her light it, she looked like a warped reflection of her old glamour and strength, but then the moment would pass and Christine couldn't recognize her at all.

"Why are all these white sheets over my furniture?" V asked, glancing around, her cigarette dangling from veined and wrinkled fingertips. She lifted it to her face and drew in deeply, the smoke wreathing her head in grey. "And where on earth is your father? He should be here by now."

"Father's been dead for four years now," Christine said, tucking a thin blanket around the old woman before tugging at the cloths draped like ghosts over the chairs. "And there are sheets here because you don't live here anymore. You live at the Home, remember? They take care of you there. You're here for Christmas with me, V. Isn't that nice?"

"But why is it still here?" V asked querulously. "If no one lives here then why is it just like it always was? You should sell it. It's bad luck to leave a house standing empty for too long. It invites spirits."

Christine balled up the sheets and tossed them in a corner, where they looked sad and grey, like the crumpled remnants of forts she would make as a child, the ones she used to hide under when she wanted to feel safe. "It's a house bought and paid for by a ghost," she said humorlessly. "I don't think you have to worry about other spirits moving in."

"Oh," V said vaguely, chewing absentmindedly at the end of her cigarette. "Good."

Christine dug in her shopping bag for a can of soda, which she cracked open and handed to the old woman with a straw. She popped in an old movie and dimmed the lights, reaching for a broom as the black-and-white images flickered on the screen. Sweeping furiously, she used the repetitive motion to try to block out the nerves in her stomach and the memories that skittered in front of her eyes. It didn't work; if anything it gave her thoughts a kind of scattered rhythm.

_Swish sweep swish. _The branch-like bristles moved across the floor, scooping dust into small piles.

_Swish sweep sweep._ Now Erik was standing in front of her again as she stammered out her excuses, looking at her with patient eyes as she squirmed under imagined scrutiny.

_"It's just that, you know, she's old," Christine mumbled, twisting the gold ring around her finger. Her toes inside of her sneakers were scrunched up, her knees facing inward pathetically. "I don't know how much longer she'll be around, and it's Christmas…"_

_"Hush," Erik said, moving close to her and brushing her shoulder lightly with his fingertips. "You don't have to make such excuses. You come back to me; you wear my ring. I have no problem with you spending the holidays with your only relative. I don't celebrate much, you see; I often lock myself away for that day, composing. It makes the holiday easier to forget." The outline of his jaw under the mask twitched into what could have been a small, sad smile. "Do not worry. You will have no interferences from me on Christmas day."_

Sweep sweep swish. The movement of the broom was like her heart as it pounded in her ears, blood rushing to her face, a ringing in her skull. _"Really? I, ah, I guess…thank you."_

_She knew that she should say something sympathetic about Christmas, perhaps even offer to purchase him a present, but her lies were present in every beat of her heart (_Swish swish sweep, the broom clunks on) _and she couldn't fake the words. Had he decided to keep her there, in his home over the holidays, her whole plan would be lost, perhaps forever._

_His hand came from her shoulder to her chin in one deft movement, drawing her face up to look at him. "Such anxiety; you won't even look me in the eye. Be aware, Christine, that I understand your need for human connection outside of myself. You have been so wonderful these past few weeks. I cannot deny you anything, you know that."_

Swish sweep swish. _Blood thundered into her face, making her flush with anger, but she forced her eyes to meet his yellow ones and nodded, acutely aware of his hand still resting on her chin._

_"Do you understand, Christine?" He asked, like a child seeking assurance. "It is because I love you that you never have to be afraid. I will keep you happy."_

_She boldly raised her hand to her face and took his cold on in her own, cupping the long fingers with her small ones, lending him her warmth. "I know. Everything will be alright," she lied softly, and didn't dare raise her eyes to his joy._

Sweep sweep sweep swish swishswishsweep _crack. _Christine jerked herself out of her reverie and stared at the two broken pieces of the broom handle clasped in her sweaty palms.

"What was that sound?" V asked, half-turning in the dim light. Christine moved into her line of vision, sitting wearily next to her on the couch.

"Nothing V. Just the old broom breaking." Christine showed her the two splintered ends of woods in her hands, the long shattered fragments perfect for sliding under skin. "I'll throw it away before someone gets a splinter," she said, but before she could move V's gnarled fingers gripped her wrist with surprising strength, bringing her left hand up to eye level.

"What is this on your hand?" she asked, inspecting the plain gold ring. "Darling, did a man give this to you?" She grinned at Christine, her eyes suddenly bright and lucid. "Was it that nice Raoul boy? Oh, he always fancied you."

"It's from a friend," Christine snapped, yanking her arm out of the old lady's grip. "Just a stupid gift from a friend. Nothing important."

"If it's from a gentleman then it's certainly important," V said, with the air of a mother hen ruffling her feathers. "A man doesn't give a gift like this unless he plans to marry a girl."

Christine felt her face pale, even though the sentiment was not unexpected. She had pushed the frightening scenario out of her mind before, but when V said it like that all Christine could see was a vision of herself in some horrible white dress, with a veil shrouding her face like a corpse.

"It's from a friend," Christine repeated slowly. "Keep watching your movie, V. I'll be back in a moment."

She fairly ran to her childhood room, closing the door with a soft thump and a small cloud of dust before falling to her knees and pulling an old cardboard box out of the closet. Inside of it was an ancient jewelry box of her mother's, with inlaid stones of red and green and black. She dug through it, her fingers closing almost instantly on a slim silver chain.

Christine hesitated for a moment ('_Am I cheating, somehow, the rules of this game that I am playing, rules I don't fully understand?') _before tugging the gold band off of her finger and dropping it onto the chain; it hung as a small, spinning halo.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to it as it dangled in front of her, glinting like one of his yellow eyes, "but I will never marry."

She dropped the chain around her neck and tucked it under her clothes, where it lay tiny and cold against her heart.


	33. Run

**Hello to my poor, poor readers who have had to struggle through my continuous lack of updates. Good news: I´m in Ecuador! Finally a Peace Corps Volunteer, after two months of training and one month of just settling in. Now I have the time on my hands to write! I should be updating this every week or two until it is finished, and the end is near. I would also like to start revising the whole thing when I get the chance, nothing big, just some tweaks. I´d like to think I´ve improved just a bit in the three years I´ve been writing this story.**

**Onward and upward! Reviews are always loved and appreciated, especially now that I am in Ecuador and far from home. :-) Enjoy!**

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**Chapter Thirty Three: Run**

It happened on Christmas day.

It had to happen on Christmas. Christine had thought about the day for a long time, turning over the possibilities in her mind. It was the only day that _he_ had promised, outright and to her face, to stay away from her, and when he promised like that, he did not break it. The conversation was still stuck in her head, turning around and around, a sad song on repeat: _You will have no interferences from me on Christmas day._

If this worked, this mad plan that she had spent sleepless nights burning into her brain, then she would have no interferences from him ever.

It started like this:

Christine opened her meager presents on Christmas Eve with Aunt V.

"No, V, this is better, why on earth would you want to have to get up early in the morning to open gifts?" She asked, sitting cross legged by the small, glistening tree that she had painstakingly decorated. The old woman was frowning, a slight tick murmuring along her lower jaw, the lines in her face deep and puckered. "Tomorrow is a day for resting and relaxing before the people from the Home arrive to take you back. Now we can sit all cozy by the Christmas lights and enjoy our gifts. Okay?"

V looked at her for a long, hard moment, but in the end relaxed. "Alright, I see how you kids are so excited to open their gifts you can't even wait for morning. But let's at least wait until the rest of the family arrives."

Christine sighed. The only gifts under the tree were from her to Aunt V, with one from Raoul to V as well. By agreement they had decided not to get Christmas presents for each other. _"It would be dangerous," _Christine had said. _"Besides, what you are doing for me is gift enough. It will change my whole world."_

As V opened her gifts by the dim light of the tree, Christine's thoughts drew inevitably to The Plan. In her mind she could see it in capital letters, The Big One, The Escape, The Plan. She had already put enough food in V's refrigerator for Christmas day and scribbled a note that she would leave on the counter, saying that she had some things to care of and not to worry about her. She had also already called the nursing home and told them that she wouldn't be able to drive V back herself, and could they please send over a car the day after Christmas to pick her up? Thanks so much, and the key is under the mat in case nobody answers the door.

All that was left was to wait until morning.

After presents had been opened and V was safely put to bed, her frail body wrapped in her new nightgown, Christine opened the screen door and sat on the back steps. Her pajamas were rolled up to her knee, the heavy Louisiana night still muggy and damp even in December. Crickets called out into the darkness, playing their little violins and singing. They were so far south, so close to Texas, and from Texas to…

For a moment Christine wished that she smoked, that inhaling on a little piece of fire would calm her shaking nerves and settled her mind. As proof she held out her hand in the dim light filtering out from the kitchen windows, and watched it tremble.

She went to bed that night but didn't sleep, instead staring at the ceiling in her old room, watching the blades of the overhead fan stir up dust, listening to the drone of flies in her ears. There was a feeling deep in the pit of her stomach, like something small and sick and heavy was lodged just above her intestines. Once during the night she calmly got up, walked to the bathroom, and vomited the little food in her stomach. Afterwards she felt better, but still did not sleep. Her nerves were on fire, the bowling ball in her gut still lodged firmly despite her stressed purging. She didn't cry, either; she was proud of herself for that. She just stared at the ceiling and ran over The Plan in her head until the small red lights by her bedside read 4:30 a.m.

Christine didn't turn on the light as she got out of bed and washed her face in the cramped bathroom. The cool water against her skin felt good, and as she lifted her face to the cracked mirror her own reflection stared back, pale and sleep worn but determined. She set her jaw firmly, wanting to memorize the fierce look on her face. _"If this doesn't work, I won't ever have reason to look determined again," _she thought, shrugging on a nondescript t-shirt and giving herself one last look in the mirror before heading to her bedroom in the dark. She checked her knapsack one last time (_"money, check, passport, check, Spanish dictionary, check"),_ tugged jeans on over her thin legs and laced up old running shoes.

Suddenly she had a flash of déjà vu, and her hands stilled on the laces, one leg propped up on the bed, knee in her face. She saw so clearly her first moments in _that house_, alone and so deeply terrified for her life, the stale taste of vomit in her mouth, sitting in the darkness of that too-plush room and tying her shoelaces with ragged, shaking hands. She remembered swiftly the terror of not knowing what lay beyond that door, those seconds that seemed like hours as she summoned up the energy to leave that room, the thrilling and bitter taste of hope in her mouth as she prayed that _no one would be there_ and that, in her worn sneakers, she could run and run and run, and never be found.

That was before she knew him, Christine realized with a small start. Erik. Before she knew anything about him, knew his height or his mask or anything beyond his whispered words in an alleyway and her night-dream music. At that time she didn't know how he moved, his graceful elegance, how his suits hung off of his thin frame like off of a hanger and how his long-fingered hands would gesture when he was excited. She didn't know about his face. She didn't know that he loved her. She had only the deep terror of the unknown, the same terror that she was feeling as she once again sat on a bed and tied her shoelaces in the dark.

Only this time, she thought as a small car pulled in front of her driveway at exactly 5:00 and she slipped silently through the screen door into the humid morning air, there was more at stake than just her life. She had dragged someone else into her problems.

Raoul gave her a shaky grin as she got into the cramped car and they pulled away. "Hey," he said quietly. Christine merely nodded at him before twisting around in her seat to watch the old house disappear in the pre-dawn darkness. "_Goodbye, Auntie V,"_ she thought with a terrible finality. "_I'll never see you again in this life."_

Sighing, she turned back around to face Raoul, who was staring straight ahead, an understandably tense look on his face. The old crease between his eyes was there, but the hair that fell across it was a watery brown color, like thin mud, instead of its usual sunny yellow.

"You dyed your hair," she stated softly, taking in his scraggly week-old beard.

"One of those at-home kits for chicks," he said. "I don't know if I did it right, but I figured they might be looking for a blond guy, if they're looking at all. Guess we better hope it doesn't rain on us; it might come out." He gave a nervous little laugh.

"You have everything?" she asked quietly, and he nodded, not taking his eyes off the road, careful to stay below the speed limit.

"Think so. I got my cousin's passport, we look pretty much alike, and he never travels out of the country anyway. This car is his too, bought it off him for 300 bucks. I pulled as much cash as I could out of my brother's account without looking suspicious; said it was for Christmas presents and I'd pay him back later. I have…" he trailed off for a moment and then glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "I have the blanket and the stuff in the back."

She nodded. "We'll pull over when it gets light out," she said. "Once we cross into Texas."

"Yeah." He paused again, then reached over and opened the glove compartment, pulling out of thin blue-backed book. "I, uh, I though you might be able to use this."

Curious, Christine took the worn passport from his grasp and opened it. Inside, a young woman slightly younger than herself smiled brightly, her short blonde hair puffing around her face. She looked like she could be Christine's sister.

"My cousin on my dad's side, Becky," he said, a catch in his voice. "She died a few years ago of a brain tumor, but her passport's still valid. I thought, well, it might be a good way to get out of using your own at the airport. Play it safe, right?"

Christine looked at him, unshed tears welling in her eyes. "Raoul, I…thank you," she whispered. "For everything. God, thank you."

He sent her a brief smile. "Hey, we're gonna get through this. No tears. Okay?"

Christine nodded fiercely and scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "Okay," she said softly.

They were silent for nearly an hour as the car plodded along the desolate highways, until Raoul looked up at the huge sign to their right. Some of the tenseness eased in his shoulders. "We're in Texas," he said, as the first rays of light hit the car windows and turned the world around them a milky shade of early morning pink. "Merry Christmas, Christine."

"Merry Christmas, Raoul," she said, smiling a little.

"Oh, and before I forget," he hesitated once again, his eyes darting downward to her bare left hand. "Becky was married, it says so in the passport. So when you use it, maybe you should like, wear a ring or something."

"Yeah," Christine said softly, her hands drifting to her neck. "Maybe that's a good…"

She paused, her fingers prodding her pale skin, searching for the silver chain. "No," she whispered, bringing up her other hand to help in the search, her eyes dropping downward to stare at her chest. "No, no, no…" She tugged at her top, hoping against hope that the chain had fallen into her shirt or gotten snagged in her bra, but after a few moments of frantic searching, she knew it was gone.

"No," she hissed again, scrunching up her eyes and bringing her shaking hands to her face. "Dear God, no, please, not now."

"Christine?" Raoul asked, glancing sideways at her. "What's the matter?"

"We have to go back," she muttered in a choked voice, the sound muffled by her hands.

"What?" he asked, unsure if he had heard her correctly. Christine lowered her hands from her mouth.

"We have to go back," she croaked. "I lost it. I have to find it."

"Christine, we can't go back now, or the whole plan will be ruined," he said, a nervous tremor running through his voice. "Why? What did you lose?"

"His ring," she wailed, now fruitlessly searching under the seat. "I put it on a necklace and I…I….oh, I was so _stupid._ Now if he finds us, I think, oh…" she let her head fall into her hands, blonde hair hanging ragged around her face. "I think we'll both die."

"Hey," Raoul said, taking one hand off the wheel and placing it on her shoulder. "Hey, look at me, Christine." She didn't move, just rocked back and forth in a futile motion, whimpering slightly. "Seriously, look at me."

Finally she did, turning her head to stare at him through a curtain of blonde hair. He made sure that she was looking at him before speaking again, one hand still reassuringly on her shoulder. "No one is going to die," he said in a steady, even voice. "This is a good plan. He is not going to find us. You are going to sneak into Mexico and board a plane to Europe as Becky Chagny. You are going to get away from here and start a new life. I will take a vacation to visit friends in Australia. Everything will be okay. We're going to be okay."

Christine didn't answer for a long time. Finally, in a small and tired voice, she said, "It's light. I think you should stop the car now."


	34. Finders, Keepers

**Chapter Thirty Four: Finders, Keepers**

Raoul complied, slowly pulling over onto the side of the road before shutting the engine off with a final click. In the silence that followed he turned to her. "It doesn't have to be like this," he said, looking at her fully for the first time. "I can come with you. I want to come with you. I don't want to leave you all alone…"

"We've been through this, Raoul," she said softly but not unkindly. "Now, where's the blanket?"

Sighing, he looked away from her. "Go lie down," he said to the windshield. "I'll get it for you."

Christine nodded silently and opened up the car door, the Texas heat warming her skin. She opened up the back door and stared at the cramped space inside for a long time before finally crawling in, huddling on the floor. Raoul appeared a moment later with several cardboard boxes and assorted trash, an old military blanket draped around one arm.

"Guess we're the only people who'll be trying to sneak _into _Mexico, huh?" he said, with a forced laugh, before falling somber again. "You ready for this?"

"No," Christine said honestly. "But I guess I don't really have a choice, do I?"

He gave her a long, sad look. "Just tell me if it gets too hot and you can't breathe," he said, before laying the blanket carefully on top of her.

"Raoul." She caught his hand at the last instant and gripped it painfully. "You know I'll never forget what you're doing for me."

"I know," he said, and gave her wistful smile. "I only wish that…"

A siren sounded in the far distance, his head swung around, and the moment was broken. "We should go," he said, shifting nervously on his feet before glancing down at her. "Try to sleep a little if you can. I think you'll need it. We've got a long drive ahead of us."

"I can sleep on the plane," she said, laying her head on the ground and curling into a tighter ball, trying to sound more hopeful than she really was. He nodded and pulled the blanket over her blonde hair until her whole world became muddled, wooly green and the sound of her own heavy breathing. Dimly she heard him place the empty boxes over her, rearranging them several times to make sure that she was properly masked. Then the door slammed; the car rocked a bit under his weight as he got back into the front seat, and soon the comforting purr of the motor rippled through her skin and the car pulled away. If there were any chance that the border patrols were on watch for a young blond couple trying to cross into Mexico, they wouldn't get it, only a lone man with dirty brown hair and week old stubble in a ratty car, years worth of old shit piled in the back.

Huddled under the blanket, Christine thought about how this all began. It was over a year ago that she had found the music at the grave, and nearly a year and a half ago since her fateful performance in _Guys and Dolls_ where he had apparently first noticed her. Was that the night that sealed her fate? Or was it something she had done afterwards, some small way of speaking or moving, some emotion expressed, that had caused it all to whirl so frantically out of control? Did he love her merely for her voice, or simply because she was so broken that he had made it a project to pick up her pieces, rearrange them to his liking, and glue them back together?

'_He said we are alike,'_ Christine thought as the car jostled beneath her, one corner of a cardboard box digging into her hip bone. The heat under the blanket was making her woozy and fuzzy-headed. _'Perhaps we are, in some ways. Maybe that's why I can't hate him, even after everything. Maybe that's why I feel…'_

In honesty, Christine didn't know how she felt about him, couldn't categorize her feelings for the man who had so irrevocably changed her life. Huddled hotly on the floor of an old car, she could remember only the gentle moments, quiet grace and civility, calm. The sound of his heavenly voice settling around her head, his strange eyes shining with peace and affection, the quiet nights they spent staring at the stars during the summer. She had even told him about her mother, something which she never spoke about to anyone, and he had calmed the little wound that still bled at the memory. At times she once again questioned if she was doing the right thing, if running would really help her. What good was a life on the run, in danger and scrounging for money, when if she had merely kept her head and accepted things the way they were she could have been on stage, sang to the multitude, been a part of something greater than herself with someone who was truly unique and maybe…

"_**Don't ever think that you are anything else but **_**mine.**_**"**_

The memory of his voice, so angry and dripping with dark possessiveness, broke through her muddled thoughts and nearly made her gasp aloud. Grappling with the blanket, Christine tugged it a little so that her mouth was free and she hungrily gulped the stale air of the car, clearing her thoughts.

'_No,'_ she thought as she pulled the green wool back over her head, making sure that she hadn't jostled or displaced any of the boxes and assorted trash on top of her. Dimly she heard the sound of a siren in the distance. '_No, I could never have stayed. I want to live too badly to stay.'_

Before she met him, before her life had become a power struggle, a frantic beating of wings against a cage, she had not cared if she lived or died. Christine wanted to cry when she remembered the state of listless apathy that had sustained her in the years following her father's death. She had not had much, but she had taken for granted the sweet and unadulterated freedom that was her blessing and her birthright. The apathy that had once shadowed her life had fled as the powerful need to survive set in, starting on the night of her capture when she feared for her life and slowly building up to this moment, hidden in an old car, fearing for something more ethereal and precious: Her freedom.

'_Maybe that is why I can't hate him,'_ she thought, curling her hands into her chest like a child, yellow hair in her mouth and in her eyes. _'For all the damage that he has done to me, he made me want to live again. He wanted to save me. Maybe he has. He changed my life.' _She realized suddenly and with a hot, strange feeling of shame, that she would miss him.

Again, the thought came unbidden to her mind: _'Am I doing the right thing?'_

Suddenly she realized that the sound of the siren was right on top of her, ringing in her ears under the blanket. Above her she heard Raoul curse.

"Raoul?" she asked softly, her voice muffled. He let out another low curse, but his voice was shaking.

"There's a police car right behind me. I can't…I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to pull over, Christine," he said in a soft voice. "Maybe….maybe I was speeding and didn't know it or something. Just stay calm and we'll be back on the road in a minute, okay?"

Christine didn't answer, just curled into a smaller ball and tried to breathe as quietly as she could as the car rumbled gently to the side of the road and came to a dead stop.

She could hear the swagger of boots crunching on gravel and the creak of Raoul manually rolling his window down. "Hey," she heard Raoul say, his voice and casual but not without the slight trace of a waver. "I mean, hello officer. Was I…was I speeding back there?"

"License and registration?" The bored Texas drawl asked, and Christine heard the glove compartment open and shut.

"Brian Henderson?" The voice asked, and Christine could almost feel his eyes flicking back and forth between the photo and Raoul's face. "This you?"

There was a hesitation, brief but telling, before Raoul stuttered out, "Of course it's me."

"You sure?"

"Why the hell wouldn't it be?" he snapped angrily.

"And where would you be going this fine day, Mr. Henderson?" The voice asked, accompanied by the sound of gravel shifting under boots. Christine wished that she could see what was going on, gather some hint from the officer's face or body language, but there was only the heavy green wool in her vision.

"Visiting an old aunt of mine," Raoul said sharply. "She's sick."

"Sick, eh? What a good nephew you must be." There was a long pause, and then, "I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to step out of the car."

"_What?"_

"Sir, if you don't step out of the car right now I'll have to call backup and charge you with resisting an officer."

"_I'm not resisting…"_

"I won't say it again. Out of the car. Now."

There was a second pause that felt like an eon, and then the sound of the car door opening and the soft rocking as Raoul stepped out.

Christine was holding her breath, too terrified to do anything but stay as still as she could. Maybe they were lucky and this cop was just some jerk on a power trip, out to shake down a young man for a few bucks. Or maybe…

"Turn around and face the car," the bored voice said. Christine felt, rather than heard, Raoul hesitate, and then the whole car shook as he was slammed against it.

"But I didn't _do _anything," Raoul protested.

"You hear that?" the officer called out to someone else.

"I sure did," came a cracked, grizzled voice; the man's partner? Christine wondered.

"He says he didn't do nothin'," said the first voice, with something like a snicker hidden in the words. She felt Raoul shift against the car, where he apparently was being held.

"But I _didn't_," he insisted.

"You just feel like tempting fate today, don't you, boy?" The drawling voice came again, mildly amused, and Christine distinctly heard the soft click of handcuffs.

"You're _cuffing _me?" Raoul asked, aghast. "What for? I was just driving, for God's sake…"

There was a sound like air being yanked from lungs, and then the weight against the car fell away and Raoul was gasping on the ground. Christine bit her knuckles to keep from crying out; she knew he had just been punched. Oh, how she hated this blindness!

"What for? _What for?_ Lying to an officer is a crime, asshole," the voice snapped, and there was the dull _whump whump _of a boot hitting a stomach. Raoul groaned. "Now, let's just see what exactly you've got in this car, hmmm?"

Terror like cold water ran down Christine's spine as she felt the back door open near her feet. A dull ringing seemed to echo through her ears, cutting off most sound except for the frantic beating of her heart. Dimly she heard Raoul give a gasping _"no"_ as a hand rummaged through the boxes.

"No?" The man asked. "Now why would you have a problem with someone looking through all your old shit unless, aha!"

One meaty hand had prodded the floor and found Christine's ankle.

"What do we have here?" The voice was supremely amused, and a second later the blanket was flung off of her huddled body and cooler air flooded her senses.

For a long moment none of them spoke; Christine looked up through a yellow curtain of sweaty hair at the heavy shape blocking the sun, a hat balanced on his balding head. Then he smiled, slow and full and satisfied. "A stowaway!"

"No!" Raoul screamed uselessly as hands gripped her ankle and shoulder and hauled her bodily out of the car.

"What a pretty thing you are," the officer said as Christine stumbled and sprawled on the ground. She sat up, pushing her hair out her eyes and rubbing the gravel from her shoulder, her gaze flickering warily to Raoul's dirty figure. He was kneeling on the ground, staring at her with a wide-eyed look of pure desperation. When he made a movement toward her, the big man shook one thick finger in his direction, like a headmaster telling off a naughty schoolboy. "Nuh-uh. You stay where you are. Finders, keepers." He turned back to Christine. "What's your name, precious?"

Christine stared at the pair of snakeskin boots in front of her. "Becky…Becky Chagny."

There was a snort. "No, it ain't."

Christine glanced up to see his round face smirking. He was large and broad shouldered, a strong man who had gone to seed, his stomach straining his slightly wrinkled uniform. Behind him his partner was perched on the hood of the police car, a whip-thin, grizzled older man who seemed content to watch the proceedings and chew tobacco.

Christine started to force herself to her feet. "I have my license in my pocket…"

A heavy hand fell on her shoulder. "I think it's best if you stay down, Ms. Danes." The voice was no longer joking, the drawl barely evident. His partner had gone completely still, his rangy wolf-eyes watching intently.

Christine swallowed dryly, her tongue thick in her throat, and from her right she heard Raoul give a soft moan. "What…what did you call me?" Her voice was a hiss; she was barely able to choke enough hot Texas air into her lungs to breathe.

Dimly she felt him leaning over her, his voice quiet in her ear. "Surely you didn't think it would be that easy, did you, little miss?"

The cuffs clinked cold against her wrists before she even realized what he was doing, chaining them behind her back. "So tell me," he continued almost casually, though that quiet, dangerous tone still threaded his tone, "what exactly makes you so special?"

"I'm not," she gasped out, the words like dry fire in her throat. "I swear, I'm not, I'm not special at all."

"Aw hell, sure you are." The joking tone reappeared, somehow more frightening than when he was serious. "For example," he continued, stepping away from her kneeling figure to stroll casually over to Raoul. "I have such strict orders not to lay a finger on you, but him?" Christine watched with sick horror as one heavy boot slammed swiftly into Raoul's stomach, leaving his gasping like a fish out of water, his face to the ground. "There are no such orders for him. The opposite, really."

"Stop it!" she screamed, her voice hoarse, as the officer continued to kick Raoul. One boot cracked into his shoulder and Raoul was swung from his fetal position to lay sprawled on his back, dirt rising in lazy circles around his prone figure. "Please, for the love of God, stop it!"

"God?" he asked, aiming his heel directly at Raoul's clavicle. Raoul groaned weakly, his eyes rolling back into his head. "Sweetie, God ain't got nothing to do with it."

So intent on watching Raoul's pain, Christine didn't even realize that the second man was behind her until his shadow crossed her path and the smell of stale tobacco assaulted her nose. "What the…" she gasped, twisting her head around, hands uselessly cuffed behind her back, but it was too late. He grabbed a fistful of her blonde hair and then something pricked her neck, like the sting of a bee against her skin.

"'night, princess," he whispered in a voice like dead leaves rustling, and stepped away from her.

For a moment everything felt normal. Then the sounds around her – Raoul's ever weaker moans, the dull slams of the boot, the wind over the empty street, the cries of the birds circling overhead- began to stretch and blur and dampen, like a tape slowed down or a pillow pressed over her ears. Her hands in their metal bracelets felt so heavy, as if she had weights attached to them. Her head was spinning.

She fell sideways, her head near the wheel of the car. Through half-lidded eyes she watched the heavyset man give Raoul one last good kick to the stomach before everything roared and expanded and warped and dulled and she could keep them open no longer.

And then there was nothing at all.


	35. Cultivated Omniscience

**AN: Thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews, and despite the fact that I don´t want to be disturbing sleep patterns or vacations, it makes me just a little happy to know that I am (at least for some of you.) I would love to message everyone who reviews personally but I have very little internet access here in Ecuador and I spent most of my ´net time talking to my family on Skype, so I´ll see what I can do. I am slowly posting revised chapters, and am hoping to revise the whole thing before the very last chapter is posted. We have three left after this!**

**-Maat**

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**Chapter Thirty Five: Cultivated Omniscience **

This time, it was the nausea that woke her.

Little fingers of sickness squeezed her tender stomach, prodding it so hard that she scrabbled out of blissful darkness just so she could tilt and wretch on the floor. Chest heaving, fingers gripping the silken sheets as she leaned off the side of the bed and gasped for air, all Christine could think was: _'I've done this before.'_

Somehow, the second time around was even worse.

Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness Christine recognized the room—silver candlestick notably absent—and the confirmation of her surroundings did her little good. She struggled to sit up, still clutching the bed sheets to her as if to form a barrier, head whirling with half-forgotten memories that blurred and mixed with her dreams.

_'I was in a car,' _Christine thought, slowly, as if the words had a question mark attached to them. _'I was with Raoul. Raoul!'_ Suddenly fear shot through her but her battered mind couldn't deal with the emotion and roughly pushed it aside. _'Okay, I was with Raoul. Why were we in a car? We were going to…Texas? No, we were _in_ Texas, we were going to Mexico…is that right? Why were we going to Mexico…there were police officers?'_ The facts splintered, fragmented across her brain, each puzzle piece making her more confused. Her head pounded, and she had to suppress another wave of nausea. _'I think they beat us. They beat Raoul._' Images of her dear friend's huddled figure shone starkly clear in Christine's mix of muddled memories. _'But why…I don't understand…this room, and…'_

"Erik."

The last word was whispered aloud, the final piece that made all of the others fit together. Slowly the knots untangled themselves and the crashing in her head eased. Of course. For a few blessed moments she had been unable to recall him, been dropped into a scattered memory world that made no sense in his conspicuous absence.

Remembering helped Christine's mental state, but not by much; in fact, the claustrophobic, panicked feeling that swept through her made the cracks lurking behind her eyes a little wider, like an earthquake's rumblings shaking across dry ground.

'_You are not out of control,'_ she told herself firmly, and then to make the belief more real she said it out loud: "I am _not_ out of control."

The darkness of the room swallowed up Christine's words as soon as she said them, leaving only the silence that draped heavily over her ears. It was so quiet that beneath her shallow breaths she could nearly hear the blood pumping through her veins.

"I am not out of control," she whispered again. _'Why not?'_ asked a little voice in her head. _'Because he loves me,'_ Christine responded, the answer almost surprising in its simplicity.

'_Of course. He is doing all of this, all of these horrible things, because he believes that he loves me, and he is frightened of losing me. Such a simple motivation for such drastic action,'_ she mused almost clinically, attempting detachment. _'That has to give me some leverage. If at least I can save Raoul…'_ Christine hesitated for a moment before doggedly finishing her thought. _'If at least I can save Raoul, and not myself, that will be enough. That will be enough for me._

'_And there are other ways out.'_

She didn't acknowledge that last thought, whispered slyly from the deepest confines of her mind, up through the cracks that were becoming ever wider. _'I will not lose my mind. I will not let him take that from me.'_

First, she had to leave the room. Wasn't that always the first step? Heroically facing danger, going headfirst into the lion's den and hoping…

'…_hoping that it doesn't eat you alive.'_

Careful, careful; do things one at a time. Step by step and everything will turn out fine. Christine concentrated on lowering the sheets from her chest and releasing her white knuckles from around them. She pushed the covers off by layers, as if peeling an onion, and one, two, set her bare feet on the cool wooden floor. Next to her white toes were her shoes; she put them on, sockless, and knotted them calmly, looping the ends and tightening the bow. Then she stood up, straightened the wrinkles from her shirt, and pushed her heavy hair behind her ears. One foot in front of the other, there is the door, turning the handle, opening, opening, and…

"Hello, Erik."

Even to her own ears her voice sounded curiously detached. He was standing with his back to her, familiar in his dark suit that was perhaps a little more wrinkled than usual, his long white hands wrapped around a book. He seemed calm, but the large black and red rug showed signs of repeated pacing, and there was a trembling air about him as he carefully marked his page and placed the book back on its shelf.

"What are you reading?" Christine asked in that curiously hollow, flat voice, as he turned to face her. The black mask, as usual, revealed nothing, but the eyes behind it were bright and almost fevered.

Erik spread his hands almost calmly. "It does not matter." The voice was as lovely as ever but distant, as if he was speaking from a great height. "You are not afraid," he said, after a beat.

Christine looked at her hands. "I have been afraid for so long," she said. "I think I used up all I have inside of me. There's nothing left."

'_Just take it step by step and everything will be alright.'_

"Hn," he said, a small noise that gave no insight to the rioting emotions behind his eyes. His next words, however, nearly startled Christine out of her carefully crafted apathy. "Let's see if we can't change that."

She glanced at him, her brow furrowed, suddenly tense. He was staring at her, as he always did, with his head slightly cocked, like it always was, but there was something _different _in his straight-backed stance, something quietly dangerous laced through his words. "What?" she asked, a thread of nervousness entering her previously unfettered voice.

"Come," he said, and without waiting turned and left the room.

After a second's hesitation Christine decided that following him was probably less dangerous than defying him and staying planted where she was, demanding to be let go or some other nonsense. Whatever he wanted to show her would only clarify the disturbingly ambiguous situation, and if he wanted her to follow…

She followed.

He led her from the sitting room, through the music room and into his darkened bedroom; without pause and without looking back he passed the six-sided bed, stepped up to a flat stretch of grey wall, made some motion with his hands, and vanished.

Christine paused, hovering by the coffin ('_where you tried to kill him_,' a voice whispered traitorously in her head, '_so maybe you deserve all of this, stupid girl')_ and stared at the wall. It seemed whole, but when she stepped up to it and stretched out her hands she realized that it was an open space, that the shadows and the identical grey wall in the adjoining room had created only the illusion of unity.

'_Like stepping through a mirror,'_ she thought as she tentatively stuck her head through. '_My own rabbit hole, complete with Mad Hatter.'_

The urge to giggle bubbled up inside of her, and she shoved it down. No good going to pieces now.

It was then that Christine saw the screens.

The wall straight ahead of her was grey and simple, but the wall to her left was nothing but televisions, small square flat screens covering every surface inch.

Some were tuned to local and national news stations, but most were the black-and-white images of security cameras. Inside of the screens she could see strange sites—the richly carpeted hallway of an opulent hotel; a dimly lit hole where swarthy men were playing poker; a futuristic-looking office where four well-dressed men were having some kind of argument—and familiar places as well—the halls of her university; the interior of its library; the outside of the restaurant where she used to work; and, her mind registered with a sickening feeling, the bedroom of her old apartment, where she could currently see Meg making out with a dark-haired boy on her old bed. And there were more stories on display, many more; too many images to register. All of it was silent, little pieces of the outside world, a moving collage.

And in front of it all was Erik, hands clasped behind his back, surveying his kingdom with a calm that was almost preternatural.

'_Dear God,'_ Christine thought, her eyes scanning the screens, her palms sweaty. '_He really is everywhere.'_

"It is rather difficult," he said blandly, as if picking up from a previous conversation. "Cultivating omniscience. It takes so much time, and patience. Before, I could eat and breathe my work; this room was my world. It was all I had, and really I just kept building and building my empire, my beautiful silent empire, as a way to keep myself occupied. All of this, a whole continent mastered, just to pass the time. But now I grow bored with this world. I am ready to leave this room. I am ready to have a normal life, to walk in the sunlight with a wife by my side, a wife who will still the frantic thoughts in my head and allow me to live. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done."

He paused for a brief moment, cocking his head slightly in her direction but not facing her. "You see? You were harder to control than businessmen across the world, than a multi-billion dollar empire. Men, normal, small minded men are driven by greed; they dance so easily for me. I still can't figure out what drives you, and until I do I will never get into your soul, will I? But I have so much patience, and much practice.

"Perhaps it is the suffering of others that moves you? That is an angle I have not tried, and I have tried so many. I have been powerful and submissive, I have ordered and I have begged, but never did I reach your heart, my Christine. Nothing I did was enough."

He took a deep breath, his thin shoulder blades whispering against the dark fabric of his suit, but still he did not face her, and when he spoke again it was as if to himself, as if during his carefully-controlled rant he had forgotten that she was standing there, horrified and mesmerized.

"Perhaps this, then," he said, in a voice so soft it was nearly indecipherable. "Perhaps this will work. I will try. And if not this…"

"Erik," Christine whispered, unable to help herself, and his long white hands curled tightly into fists at the sound of her voice. She felt as if she could see him breaking before her very eyes, layers peeling off to reveal the stark and frightening truth underneath. This calm seemed a tightly controlled façade to guard the inner self, but the shell was cracking, and like the hatching of some dark, writhing animal, Christine dreaded seeing what was inside.

"Of course, I am boring you," he said, and the words were a little harsher, a little more malicious. "I should show you something that will cheer you up, shouldn't I? It is hard to fathom, but I believe I know just the thing."

He reached to the vast control panel in front of him and with one elegant finger flicked a small switch. The pictures flickered, and then changed, like a stack of cards being flipped, merging together into one large image that filled the entire wall with one full-color face.

Raoul.

"Oh," she gasped, unintentionally, the little breathy sound breaking the silence. Erik's hands flexed again as he shot her one sidelong glance before staring at the screens with eyes narrowed in loathing.

Even beaten and unconscious Raoul was handsome, the smear of blood across his left cheek almost picturesque, red paint on a sleeping prince. He was lying on the dirty floor of a darkened room, his hands bound behind his back, but the image was too close to see anything of his surroundings. The dim light around him flickered and guttered, making Christine think of an old, bare bulb swinging at the end of a wire.

"He is alive," Erik said, unnecessarily; Christine could easily see the steady but pained rise and fall of his chest. "I had wanted him to be conscious, for the sheer emotionality of it, but the pain was so intense that a sedative had to be administered. To save him from himself, you see, and his own frantic thrashings. Frankly, I am surprised one of those broken ribs hasn't pierced the lung wall yet and filled it with fluid. Perhaps it has. Painful death, choking on ones own blood. Let us hope it does not come to that. Even so, the sooner he receives medical attention, the better."

Christine could say nothing; she had forgotten how to breathe, how to think. All she could see was her dear friend's gasping breaths, how the whites of his eyes were fluttering spasmodically behind half-closed lids. Tears dripped down her cheeks with shuddering slowness, and she realized that Erik was finally looking at her, eyes hooded and predatory.

"You cry for him," he said, and the words carried a chill that trembled down her spine. "You cry for that boy. He is not worthy of your tears."

"He is worthy," Christine choked out, unable to help the words. She forced herself to meet those yellow eyes. "He is worthy of my tears," she repeated, steadily. "_He is worthy_. He is a good person. He is my friend. He is in pain. I can cry for him!"

With that she broke down, burying her face in her hands, shoulders shaking. When she could finally breathe again she looked up with reddened eyes, but his gaze was impassive.

"Please, let him go. He's done nothing to you. You don't have to do this."

"He did do something to me," Erik snarled, taking a step closer to her, his posture coiled and tight. "He _stole _from me. He had everything in the world and still he stole from me. He stole your affection. He tried to steal _you_. And you would have me save _his_ life?"

"Yes," she sobbed, barely able to speak. "Yes, please, save him. Everything that happened, it was all my fault, all my idea. He is blameless. Save him. For me, Erik, please, save his life."

"For you?" he asked, with dangerous stillness. "Perhaps I could have…but unfortunately Erik is no longer your friend, and you are no longer under his protection."

'_Did he just…?'_ Christine was shocked enough to stop crying; the tears dried up in her throat, and all she could manage to say was: "What did you just say?"

He stalked toward her until her nose was nearly touching his chest, then swooped down so that his flaming eyes were staring straight into hers. "Where is your ring, Christine?" he asked with quiet menace.

Christine's heart skipped a beat, then lurched painfully in her chest. "It was an accident," she whispered, her voice shaking so badly the words were barely understandable. "I'm so sorry, I swear, it was an accident…"

"Where is your ring?" he asked again. More tears welled in her eyes and clustered on her lashes.

"I don't know," she said in her trembling voice. "I lost it, I'm so sorry."

"No, you are not," he said, straightening and stepping away from her. "But you will be."

His next words were spoken with a dispassion of such studied carefulness that it was more frightening than screaming, as if it was taking every ounce of his willpower to form coherent words and keep his voice level; faked sanity. "I am going to give you a choice," he said, his lovely voice dead; it sounded _wrong_, like a note falling flat, and made Christine wince in agitated expectation. "You asked me once about your choices. I told you that they would come later, that there was a story that had yet to be played out. Do you remember? Now is that time. Our little story can come to an end tonight. Then again…"

He shifted slightly and Christine looked up to find those feral eyes locked on hers. The seconds ticked by in silence as he stared at her, hands jerking spasmodically as if there was a great energy inside of him that was aching for release.

"You can go tonight, if you wish, and never see me again. I know that is what you want. You can go and bury yourself in your schoolwork, in your own private hell; you can return to what you were before: weak, miserable, alone. You can walk out of that door tonight and spend the rest of your life playing at being alive…if that is what you truly desire. I give you that choice."

He fell silent, studying her reaction, but there was none. Christine knew better by now, knew that after all of this he would not just let her turn around and walk out of his life forever. There was a catch, of course there was; she just had to wait and see how damaging it would be.

"But know this," he finally said, with a strange note of madness and desperation, as if he had been searching for something in her face that he did not find. "I am only selfless enough to save one life, to grant one happy ending where there will be none for me. Only one of you will walk in the sunlight again." He turned to the projection of Raoul's unconscious face, the camera angle so close Christine could see the sweat in his pores. "That is your choice, Christine. You, or him. Marriage or funeral. One of you will stay tonight. Which one is up to you."

"I'll stay," Christine gasped immediately. "Erik, let him go and I'll stay forever. I promise."

Her response seemed to hover in the air for a moment before dissipating. "You promise?" he whispered, but instead of hopeful his voice sounded cruel and sarcastic. "My, how you must care for him, to sacrifice yourself so readily, after you fought so hard and planned for so long to be free of me." He was snarling the words with disgust, his calm façade melting off and that deep and pitiless anger seeping to the surface. "Mexico, an inspired choice; had you both been a bit cleverer you might of succeeded. But I still would have found you, and we still would have ended up in exactly the same place. It merely would have taken a bit longer. Really, isn't it convenient that it is happening now, instead of wasting everyone's time with silly chases?" When she was silent he turned again to her; the suppressed rage had moved from his hands into his shoulders, shaking them with a trembling, barely-controlled fury. "Well, isn't it?"

"I'll stay, Erik," Christine said again, quietly. "I will never run. If you let him go."

He grabbed her arm and steered her forcefully out of his strange surveillance room, back past the six-sided bed, and through the darkened house. "Now now, this is not a decision to be taken lightly," he hissed in her ear. "I want you to really think about it; there are many unforeseen ramifications to marrying a corpse, you see, and after some reflection you might not be able to deal with them. You must banish all doubt from your mind and waver not in the slightest. This is, after all, your choice. So take some time. Just not too long; we don't know how long his young body can hold out."

Then he threw her in her room and locked the door.


	36. The Little Madness

**Chapter Thirty Six: The Little Madness**

Looking back, Christine didn't really remember how it happened. In the haze of memories clouded by stress and fear, it was hard to clearly recall losing her mind. But she did.

She remembered flying at the locked door and pounding on it with hysterical fists, screaming at the top of her lungs. "Let me out!" she shrieked, until her crystal voice was hoarse and choking. "I've made my choice, I've made it, now let me out! He's going to die if we wait! Erik! Can you hear me? Erik! Let me out!"

Finally she slid to knees and leaned her forehead against the cool wood of the door. She was shivering; the sweat that had gathered during her passionate frenzy was now beading against her skin, sapping her body of heat. Christine looked down at the hands clenched in her lap and saw bloody knuckles and palms, little shavings of wood and blood clotted under her fingernails. Looking up, she saw the clawed gashes on the door, and didn't even remember making them.

"Fuck," she moaned, hitting her head slightly against the wood. It made a nice dull _whumping_ noise, and the little aching pain that accompanied it helped to sharpen her thoughts. She tried it again, a bit harder. _Whump_. Pain. It felt good.

'_Alright, fine.'_ The little voice inside of her sounded completely rational, offsetting the rhythmic rocking of her body and the gently painful tapping of her head against the immovable door. A little harder. _Whump. Whump._ _'Alright, alright, alright.'_

'_He wants me to think about it. I will.'_ To the steadying beat of her head Christine pondered her options. _'So, I marry him. What happens next? We'll probably leave here. I'll never see Meg, or Claudia, or anyone I care about ever again. Definitely not Raoul. I guess it's good that I don't have any family to miss!' _Somehow, the adrenaline and the shaking of her body were making her giddily hysterical. She increased the strength of her poundings. _Whump whump _was slowly turning into a nice, satisfying _crack crack_ noise. _'I'll probably never see the sun again, or feel summer's warmth on my skin, or swim in a pool, or…no, no. Don't think about that. This isn't a game of what I will never do again. This is a game of what will I do. For I will still do things, oh, I'm sure I will._

'_What will marrying him be like? I will sing, though probably not in public, not anymore. Messed things up too badly for that. _It was becoming hard to think; she was getting woozy. A little harder, then. The pain jolted her and helped clear her thoughts. _I will never be alone, that's for certain. More games of chess! Maybe I'll take up cooking._ She wanted to laugh, but instead realized that she was crying. Was she? There was something wet on her face. Tears? Did tears taste of iron?

'_It will always be night here. Night. Where will he sleep? Will things stay the same? Will I have to sleep in a coffin with a corpse? Will he expect me to…will I have to…oh, no, no, no….'_

How could that have never occurred to her before? How could she have overlooked the main idea behind the word _marriage_? She wanted to vomit. She couldn't think. She couldn't even feel any pain in her head anymore, just a sort of distant wooziness, a long-suffering exhaustion.

'_No! Harder, harder, I have to think! I can't let…I won't let…'_

_Crack._

Dark clouded her vision. Why was everything tilted? When did she lie down? Something was stinging in her eyes. So tired. Maybe she should take a nap.

She barely even registered the door opening, the figure stooping over her. Why was he bothering her when she just wanted to sleep? Who was crying? It certainly wasn't her.

"Oh, Christine." There it was again, that heartbreaking sob.

"_Don't cry," _she wanted to say. _"I was just thinking hard."_ But her lips didn't move. Whoever was carrying her was shaking and whispering something. What was it?

"Don't fall asleep."

And then…

The angel was singing.

Something cool was pressed to her forehead, wiping away the stickiness and the iron-tasting tears. The song, instead of lulling her to sleep, was pulling her up from the darkness against her will, forcing her struggling eyes open. She was lying on something soft ('_the couch?'_ her mind wondered) and now the water was gone and something that stung was touching her sensitive forehead, making her gasp in pain and open her eyes for the first time.

She quickly closed them again. The light in the room was blinding; the few dim lamps seemed to throw out a glow that would have rivaled the sun. In the instant her eyes were open she had registered Erik's dark figure leaning over her, cradling a wooden bowl in one hand and gently dabbing some kind of ointment on her forehead with the other. Christine moaned slightly, then forced her lids open again.

Their eyes met mid-dab, as his hand was reaching out with a greenish, opaque substance on his fingertips that smelled slightly of menthol and mint. He froze, and just stared at her for a moment with tender, worried eyes, but then she moved and they hardened into something cold and frightening.

"That will not get you out of your obligations," he hissed breathily, the angry sound belying the gentleness of his hands as they resumed smoothing the ointment on her forehead.

"What?" she asked fuzzily, trying to bring one hand up to touch her face. He forced it down.

"Lie still," he commanded.

"What happened?" she asked, wincing in pain as he touched an especially tender nerve. "I was just…thinking. I don't remember…"

"Yes, selective memory loss is so convenient, isn't it?" he asked snarkily. The hand that dipped into the wooden bowl was shaking. "Especially when concerning attempted suicide."

"Suicide?" she gasped, trying to sit up.

"Be still," he snarled again, pushing her with rather more force than necessary onto the couch. "And don't lie to me."

Christine fell silent. She knew that at this point it would be useless to argue with him, and really, the facts did seem to be in his favor. She could barely remember what happened, just that one moment she had been in a panicked frenzy and the next she was on the couch, her forehead a mass of welts and bruises.

Finally she spoke. "I've thought about it," she said in a quiet voice. "Just like you asked. I'm still willing to stay."

"And how will I know that the moment your friend is gone you won't attempt to commit suicide again?" he asked icily. "I can not keep you tied up all day, and I'm afraid I have no rooms with padded walls to insure your safety when I am not around."

"I won't kill myself," she said in an even softer voice, eyes unfocused, staring at a point on the ceiling, hands laced peacefully over her stomach. "I promise, nothing like that will ever happen again."

"No, it won't," he said shortly, before placing the wooden bowl next to him on the low table and wiping his long fingers with a clean white cloth. "It won't happen again, because I am upping the ante, as it were, to our little game. If you are able to stand?"

He held one hand out to her and she stared at it blankly. "No?" he asked, in a voice so layered and woven with civility and love and anger and bitterness that it was impossible to tell them apart. "Then I guess I'll just have to carry you."

Before Christine could protest he scooped her up in his arms, his thin body belying his strength in the easy way that he carried her from the room. Instead of struggling Christine was very still, frozen, an animal faced by a predator. Her ear was so close to his frail chest that she could feel the rasp of his breath, how his lungs moved in an out with each step; she could feel his heart beat, an awkward, fluttered pumping, like that of a bird's. His frozen hands were wrapped under her knees and curved around her back; he held her so lightly, as if she was made of air, or delicate china that could break if jostled. It was almost comfortable.

Then they were back in his grey-walled surveillance room and he was dumping her unceremoniously into the black leather chair facing the screens.

"Now," he said, crouching down so that he was next to her, hands fisted on the back of the chair, near her shoulders. The picture of Raoul under that dangling, swinging light was still looming, but he pressed a button and the screens shuffled the image away, replaced by security camera images of buildings and offices that she didn't recognize. "I would like to show you my empire."

Christine's eyes flickered among the images. "I don't understand," she said softly.

"Well, what do you see?" he asked, in the patient voice of teacher coaching a confused student. Christine frowned.

"Just…buildings."

"And where are these buildings?" he seemed enjoy baiting her, but underneath it Christine could feel the shaking sense of madness and futility, of his collapsing control.

"I don't know," she finally answered, choosing her words carefully. "I guess…here? In the United States?"

"Exactly!" he crowed. "These are just a few of the corporations that I own. They are scattered across this great country, from sea to shining sea, as it were, and they represent the pinnacle of our economic system. Banks and insurance agencies and universities and theaters and conglomerates, law firms and consulting firms, and so many more. I don't directly run them, of course, who has the time? But I do own a controlling share in their stock, and I do have access to their passwords and their computer systems and their personal information. I know all of their secrets." He paused, but when she did not speak, only stared at the screens in horrified wonder, he continued. "I could bring them down so easily. I could do anything I wanted to them, if I was in the mood. I'm sure that the banks would be decidedly put out if a computer virus crashed their system or if all of the money suddenly vanished from their accounts. We are already in an economic recession; I would hate to see the consequences of more banks failing.

"I'm also sure that many of them don't know about the wired explosives built into their foundations—I was paranoid, you see, and decided to take out a little extra insurance on my investments. And since I really am just a shadow to these people, I think that they would come to their own conclusions about what happened—terrorists, maybe? Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Venezuela…the entertainment value of the conspiracy theories alone would be worth it. And then how would we react, how would we retaliate? The possibilities are endless. One thing is for certain though: many people will die. There is even a good chance that this country will be decimated. But it won't matter to you, will it? If you kill yourself, it won't affect you at all. But just because you won't be here to witness it doesn't mean that it won't happen."

Christine was speechless. She stared, open mouthed, at the flickering images before her, then turned with a kind of stunned wonder to the masked man still crouched by her side. He was eyeing her curiously, panting a little from his long and impassioned rant, waiting to see her reaction.

When she did respond, the words weren't the right ones, but they were the only words that came into her head. "You're crazy," she gasped. When he didn't respond she plowed on, her voice rising in pitch and taking on a sharp, hysterical edge. "I mean, I knew you were messed up, but holy _shit._" She pushed the chair away from him on its rolling wheels, her hands clenched white-knuckled around the arm rests. "Do you hear yourself?" she asked frantically, very aware that she was digging her own grave but so shocked and disturbed that she didn't really care anymore. "Do you hear yourself at all? You're telling me you're going to destroy the _United States of America _if I kill myself? I mean, threatening to kill my friend, that's normal crazy, that's like, _expected_ crazy, but this brings crazy to a whole new level. I can't deal with this kind of crazy. Do you hear me? I can't _mentally fucking deal_ with this kind of crazy!"

"Well, you're going to have to!" he snapped, his calm finally breaking. "You're going to have to deal with all of it because this is what I am, this is what _you made me!"_

"You're blaming me for your insanity?" Christine gaped at him. "You're blaming _me_?"

"Yes!" Now he stood and began to pace the room, gesturing frantically, his breath short and gasping. "Before you I was calm, I was always in control, I was…I was…"

He brought his hands up to his head as if he was going to tear his hair out, as if the very act of forming coherent sentences was becoming too much for him. He seemed on the edge of breaking, every word a struggle. "Everything was fine," he muttered, almost deliriously. "I wasn't crazy, I wasn't, I was…I was fine…Erik was fine! Erik was sane! You!" He spun on her and began advancing in such a slow, threatening manner that Christine leapt out of her chair and backed away, her back hitting the wall of televisions. "You drove Erik mad! You made Erik feel emotion! You made Erik want to live! Why? Why did you have to do that?" He seemed to crumple before her eyes, and underneath the mask Christine was sure that he was weeping. "Why couldn't you have left Erik alone to die?"

She had no answer.

"Fine then," he snarled. "If Erik can not live in the sunlight then maybe _no one…_"

"I already told you I'd stay!" Christine screamed, finding her voice in time to cut off his terrible words. "Isn't that enough for you? What more do you want? I'm staying, Erik, I'll never leave! Now stop this! Please!"

For the first time, her words seemed to reach him. He paused, and a sort of nervous hesitation flickered through his eyes, as if sanity and madness were battling for dominion in his shattered mind. "You will…?" he asked softly, then continued in a bolder tone. "You promise Erik this? Of your own free will? You'll stay with him?"

"I will, Erik," she said in a steady voice, not breaking eye contact. He stared at her for a moment, then dropped his gaze almost shyly and reached for her hand, twining her fingers in his and tracing her bruised knuckles with his thumb as if mesmerized.

"Forever?" he asked, in the quietest of voices. Christine sighed, defeated.

"Forever."


	37. Twisted Providence

**AN: Hello again, after a long dely. Life down in Ecuador has been...interesting. I finished my original novel and, after friends and family proofread it, am hoping to somehow, someday, start searching for an agent.**

**Fanfiction . net has been grumpy lately and wouldn't let me post this, so I had to find a creative way around the error messages. If this results in any strange text or smushed together words, well, that sucks, and I'll fix it when ffnet lets me.**

**So we come (close) to the end of HTP. I think I keep putting off writing the last chapter because I don't want this story to end, but it will be written, I promise. As always, thank you all for coming with me on this (dark, wierd, creepy) amazing journey. It means the world to me. I don't really know what else to say but...read!**

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**Chapter Thirty-Seven: Twisted Providence**

After her tired acceptance Erik changed; the light of insanity didn't fade from his eyes but it was tempered into something apologetic and childlike. He ushered her from the many-screened room and into the kitchen, pulling out a chair solicitously and letting her collapse into it. He seemed frantically eager to please, wringing his hands together like a worried old lady, fluttering around her with nervous energy.

"We do not need to be married right away," he was saying, pacing around the kitchen and looking at her with a strange combination of affection and worry. "We can wait if you like. Longer engagements are the fashion now, and I always imagined that you would like a spring wedding. I already have a beautiful dress waiting for you, if you want to see it."

Without warning Christine burst into tears, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them fiercely. Trying to stifle the sobs was useless; they crept out of her in little puffs and gasps, red face all screwed up, nose sniffling and runny. Erik immediately dropped to one knee in front of her with a sound very near a moan.

"Now, now, no need to cry," he said with the uncertain hush of someone who does not know how to deal with tears. "Every girl is nervous before her wedding day, it is only natural. And…and I have something for you!" He was suddenly excited, as if he had struck the root of her problem. "Here; all is well." He dropped the ring, complete with broken chain, into her hand. "I have found it for you. No harm, my dear, but next time I would guard it more carefully. Chains are so undependable."

He fell silent, kneeling there and looking up at her red face with adoration. Christine sniffled again and gripped the ring with such fierceness that she was sure it would leave a red mark on her palm. "Please, Erik, don't kneel like that. Sit down." Her voice was scratchy and raw, and she gestured to the chair next to her with a weary flick of her fingers. She kept her gaze downcast, unable to look into his yellow eyes; she was too tired to try and decipher what she found there. In fact, she found that she was too tired to care about almost anything. A sort of numbness had settled over her brain like a fog, blocking out everything except for a deep, bone-weary exhaustion, the desire to curl up and sleep and never wake up again.

But there was one last thing that she had to do. "Erik," she said softly, still looking down at her clasped hands, the ring nestled safely inside. "You will keep your promise, won't you? You will let him go?"

There was a rather ominous pause, and then a sigh. "He will be released," he said in a tired, sad voice, as if in his madness he had forgotten the terms of her agreement. "Your boy will live a long and prosperous life, I am sure. That, too, is a wedding gift to you, my Christine."

"Thank you," she said quietly, and a strange sort of peace filled the corners of her brain, allowed the pleasantly numbing fog to seep in and wrap up her senses. Her final wish had been fulfilled. Now she had nothing left to worry about, and nothing left to fight. No more clawing and struggling toward a light she would never reach, no more screaming, no more tears. It was over.

"You are welcome," he murmured, and then brushed the edge of her knee with one long and trembling hand. "I want you to know," he began hesitantly, as if unsure of what words to use or how to form them properly, "that you never have to worry about anything in this house. I will never do anything that will make you cry. You will be happy, you may not believe it now but you will be! You will see."

He leaned forward. "Look at me," he said softly, and she complied. His feral eyes were less than a foot away from hers, the blank, staring mask a comforting barrier between the two faces. "My Christine," he whispered. "You will never have to fear anything ever again. Do not think…" he paused, as if about to plunge into ice-cold water, and then continued. "Just because we will be married does not mean that you will ever have to see under the mask. I would never subject you to that! And…I ask nothing from you in return. I will be happy just living by you, hearing your voice and seeing your smile. Nothing more. Erik would never…" he trailed off, lifting his hand hesitantly from her knee and sitting up straight as if unable to finish the sentence, but Christine understood his meaning.

"Thank you," she said again, and then decided to be brave. "If you don't want…what I mean to say is, well…" she reached out and tentatively touched the back of his hand, her fingers light on his protruding knuckles. They were cold, like the rest of him. "What _do_ you want?"

He stared at her hand willingly touching his as if transfixed, then drew a breath. "All I ever wanted," he began in a shaking voice, the words hollow and lovely, as if coming from someplace far away, the sound only now reaching her after echoing off of walls and dark caves for a long time. "Was a little beauty in this world, a little love. A little kindness. You are good enough to give that to me, aren't you? Just every once in a while, just a little…some kindness." He looked at her with pleading eyes, wrapping her outstretched hand in his. The chill seemed to soak through her skin, icing over her bones. "That's all I ask of you."

There was a long moment of silence. Christine could hear the wooden ticking of a clock in the next room, the whispered hushes of his breath and the cool, steady beating of her own heart. Then she looked into his eyes and said, with quiet certainty, "I'm afraid I can't do that, Erik."

He froze. "What?" he asked, his voice more surprised than angry, like the words hadn't sunk into his brain. Christine sighed, gently.

"I promised that I would stay with you, and I will. I will even marry you, if that is what you want me to do. But I did not promise my heart, and I did not promise my kindness. I am sorry." She sounded genuine, her hand still clasped in his. "I can give you nothing. I have nothing left to give. But I am here, and that is what you wanted, isn't it? I will always be here."

He shuddered a little, dropping her hand as if burnt. "That is…that is not…" he stuttered, standing abruptly and backing out of the room. Christine followed him. Her heart rate was calm, her breath even. It was as if nothing could touch her anymore.

He almost flinched when she entered the room, refusing to meet her eyes; she supposed that they must look empty now, as blue and dull as the polished surface of a lake. The idea that she could make him flinch would have once made her feel powerful; it would have made a storm of ideas flood into her head, ideas and calculations and hopes. Now she merely marked it off as a curiosity.

"What were you going to say?" she asked flatly, and sat at the edge of the couch, hands folded across her lap, head listing to one side. She did not move or fidget, and when she blinked it was with a slow steady movement. She was so very tired. "'_That is not…'_ what?"

"That is not what I wanted," he whispered.

"Of course it was," she reasoned. "You wanted me to stay. I'm staying."

"Stop that!" he snapped, backing away skittishly. Christine blinked.

"Stop what?" she asked.

"Stop acting as if you are dead!" he said. "Stop sitting so perfectly still! Stop speaking as if you have no voice!"

"I have no voice," she said simply. "I never have. Not with you. You never wanted me, not really. You wanted a warm body and a pretty smile." She smiled dully, like a doll. "Everything you have done from the beginning was just control, control, control. That is what I tried to tell you, so many times. I tried, Erik." Now she stood and took a step toward him; he backed away, his spine nearly to the wall. "Why are you so upset?" she asked, but her voice lacked curiosity. "You won."

"If I had not had control," he ground out painfully, the words little pieces of broken glass, "then you never would have stayed. I had to. I had to make you stay."

"Is that what you thought?" she asked, with a patience that was nearly boredom. She was just so exhausted, so tired of all of this, of these useless words, as if the sheer act of keeping her heart beating and remembering to blink was using up all of her energy. "That I would not have stayed? How silly. I would have stayed. Of course I would have stayed."

"Do not lie to me," he snapped, seeming to come to himself and taking a step toward her. She regarded him passively, her eyes half-lidded. "You never would have stayed! Why would you have stayed, if I did not make you? What possible incentive would you have had to stay with me?"

"You are a genius," she said plainly. "You gave me beautiful music. You made me appreciate life again, when I was ready to die. I was running from the control, not from you. Deep down, I think that you know that."

"You think I believe a word you are saying?" Erik hissed, in a voice as twisted and as dark as any she had ever heard, but still she did not move. "You are mocking me, you are taunting me, and I won't have it!" He approached her swiftly, one hand coming up to his face, and suddenly the mask was off, landing with a thump at their feet. "You would have stayed with this?" he snarled, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and pulling her toward him, the broken visage twisted. "I think you lie, Christine. You would have run from this. And why wouldn't you? Everyone else in the world has!" The skull bared its teeth furiously. "Look at me now and tell me you would have stayed with Erik!"

"I would have stayed," she said, her quiet voice breaking with emotion for the first time, her eyes flickering quietly with life like a stone thrown in deep water, sending ripples along the surface. She put her hands on his cheeks, cupping his death's face, running her thumbs along jagged cheekbones, fingers dangerously close to his hole of a nose. She drew him to her, until his fast breath brushed her skin and his wondering eyes were level with her own.

"I would have stayed," she whispered again, and kissed him.

It was not a long kiss, just a meeting of lips, her soft ones against his dry and flaking skin. She held it for a few beats; he didn't respond, just stayed frozen, as if his mind couldn't process what was happening to him, and didn't move even when she drew away, hands still cupping his withered cheeks.

"Poor Erik," she said, her voice wavering with emotion. One hand gently reached up to stroke his baby-fine hair. Then, pulling back, she gave him a sad smile as if nothing unusual had just happened and said, "I'm rather tired now. I think I will go lie down."

He hadn't moved, his body still tilted in a stooped position, but when she turned to walk away his hand suddenly shot out and grabbed her wrist with surprising strength. She looked at it and then at his face curiously.

"I'm sorry," he gasped out. She shrugged, a world-weary gesture.

"It's okay." Her voice was soft and near-inaudible. He didn't say anything else but when Christine tried again to walk to her room he tightened his grip on her arm, to the point of near-pain.

"Do not go," he said, and she realized in the cracking of his voice that he was weeping. Tears trailed down the parched skin of his emaciated face to drip off of his chin and onto the carpet.

"All right," Christine said. She turned back to him and managed to pry his hand off of her wrist but a moment later he was clasping her hands between his own. Strange, she thought, how they suddenly didn't seem so cold.

"I have not done much for you, have I," he murmured, staring tearily at their entwined fingers. "I love you so much and yet all I have ever managed to do is frighten you and make you cry." He glanced up at her bruised forehead with eyes that were surprisingly clear and lucid. "I have not done many good things in my life. I have never believed in redemption. However…"

He trailed off, his golden eyes studying her face, one hand brushing a lock of hair from her cheek. When he spoke his voice was thrumming and harmonious, sadly peaceful and in many ways more lovely than it had ever been before. "You are beautiful, but you are most beautiful when you are happy. I will do anything to make you happy, I know that now. You gave me one moment of happiness. I will give you a lifetime. Can you promise me that, Christine? Can you promise to be happy? And, perhaps, sometimes, to think of me with kindness, and not only with hate and fear?"

"Erik…"

"Promise me, Christine," he said, in a low and insistent voice. He was still crying.

Christine promised.

After she had spoken the words he sighed and closed his eyes. "You will live," he said with decisiveness. "And be happy. I can give that to you."

Then he paused and squared his thin shoulders. "Yes. I have one more gift for you. Do not move."

Then he left her, disappearing into a wall that had no door, leaving Christine standing in her sockless shoes in the middle of the sitting room. She was still exhausted, a headache threatening to bloom and blossom from her battered forehead. What was he doing? Where had he gone? She was confused and regretting her venture out of the peaceful numbing fog that previously clouded her senses, but now she could not seem to bring it back. Not after that kiss.

She wanted to cry from sheer weariness. Where was he?

A shuffling of noise, and he reappeared from the opposite wall. Christine turned with a start, words dying on her lips in sheer disbelief.

Raoul was half-draped on Erik's shoulders, his face bloody and eyes closed, the bizarre sight accentuated by the fact that he was not unconscious, but leaning heavily on Erik's thin form, barely able to walk.

"Raoul!" she gasped, rushing over to him, and when she did Erik unexpectedly eased him onto her shoulders, so that she was supporting her barely conscious friend.

"Erik, what are you doing?" she asked frantically, swaying under Raoul's weight. "He shouldn't be walking! How is he even conscious?"

Erik gave an apologetic shrug, looking for all the world like a little boy who had been caught telling a lie. "He is not as bad as all that," he said, not meeting her eyes. "I have an unfortunate tendency for the dramatic that I can't seem to suppress."

There was a pause, then Erik continued with an air of studied calm. "If you prod him he can walk, and support some of his own weight, but he's not really aware of his surroundings, and he probably won't remember any of this later. I would appreciate it if you did not divulge any privileged information to him."

"Erik," Christine said in a steady tone, wincing as she shifted Raoul's weight, which was threatening to crush her smaller figure. "What are you saying?"

He turned his back on her with tense deliberation. "The door is open; the light will show you the way out. Go to the hospital first. After that, you can do whatever you wish. Send the police, if you will. I will leave the door open. God knows I deserve it, after all of the things I have done. Perhaps they will be kind and put me out of my misery. One can only hope, I suppose."

"I…" Christine's mouth felt like it was filled with cotton; she could barely swallow, her tongue suddenly too thick to speak. "I don't understand."

"You have a wonderful life to live, Christine," he said quietly. "I suggest that you start living it. Remember your promise. And sing, won't you? Sing, and think of me."

"Erik…" Christine whispered, unable to move. Beside her Raoul groaned weakly.

At the sound of his name Erik finally turned; his shoulders were hunched, tears streaming down his barren face, hands curled into fists so tight that tiny drops of blood beaded onto his fingers. "Go," he whispered, staring at her desperately. "Just go, Christine. And don't look back."

She went.

Coaxing softly, Christine was able to get Raoul to move, slow, shuffling steps to the grey door that always appeared just when Erik wanted it to. She pulled her friend along, his figure draped on her shoulders, head of blond hair sticky with blood nearly obscuring her vision. She grasped the large handle, halfway expecting it to be locked; it swung open easily under her fingertips, and beyond it she could see the familiar hallway with its dim light drawing her downwards along the proper paths in the labyrinth of corridors.

And then, right before she and her beaten friend stepped out of Erik's cold and quiet apartment for the last time, Christine turned her head and looked back at him.

It was that look that changed everything.


	38. The Long Year Ends

**AN: **So here it is, finally, the long-awaited last chapter. I want to thank each and every one of you for coming along with me on this journey. I know it's taken a long time, and to those of you who have stuck with me…wow. Just wow. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I've known from the beginning that this is how the story would end: quietly, honestly. I hope you all enjoy it, and don't be too upset that I didn't wrap everything up in a bow, or make it fluffy and happy. That wouldn't have rung true to the point of the story. What I am trying to get across here, I guess, is that life is very short. So enjoy every moment, and smile, and love with all your heart. And review, of course.

Thanks again, and keep your eyes peeled. I have a feeling that Phantom fanfiction isn't quite done with me yet…

Love, Maat.

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**Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Long Year Ends**

It wasn't until she arrived at the hospital that she really made her choice.

It was late afternoon, and the emergency parking zone was awash with haphazardly parked cars and dinged fenders. Fat square ambulances were pulling out just a few feet away, lights flashing, wailing like infants. The air smelled of exhaust and dirty snow.

She paused for a moment after turning off the ignition, hand lingering over the keys that had been sitting quietly in the black car when they finally emerged into daylight. Honestly, she couldn't even remember the drive to the hospital, asking for directions, the franticness of it all. The world seemed to haze over, colors blending; she hadn't thought to turn the heat on, and the frigid air was like a cold compress against the back of her neck. The old exhaustion returned, heavy, dragging her forehead down to the steering wheel. She just wanted to _sleep_.

Raoul moaned.

Christine snapped up, wrenching the car door open and running to his side. Numb fingers frantically unbuckled his seat-belt. She heaved his weight onto her aching and weary shoulders, the blood from a gash in his lip spooling like thread against her arm.

"Come on, just a few more steps," she found herself murmuring as he stumbled. Her mouth tasted like ash and her throat burned, unshed tears closing up her windpipe. "You're gonna be fine. Just a bit more. We can do this."

And then, a little quieter, "We made it, Raoul. We're free."

Two orderlies saw her coming and rushed out of the hospital's glass doors to take him from her, and for a moment she struggled irrationally, shying away like a wild animal, a scream winding up in her gut.

"Miss," one of them said, placing a warm, tanned hand on her wrist. "It's okay, we got him. You can let go now."

As if he had said magic words she let Raoul slide from her grasp and stood there, scream swallowed, frail and alone as they lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him away from her.

"Can you tell me what happened? Miss?" A nurse was at her side, brushing hair out of Christine's eyes as the battered girl stood there with a glazed expression on her face, like a doll that had come to life. "How did you get these bruises?" she asked, studying the purple and blue mess that was Christine's forehead. After a moment the nurse sighed and stepped back. "You're in shock. Come inside now and we'll get you some help, okay?"

Christine shook her head. As if rousing herself from a deep sleep she blinked and looked around, noticing for the first time how cold she was, how she wasn't even wearing a jacket and how her nose was running, wet and warm against her skin. She felt the pain in her head, and in her whole body, like every inch of skin should be the color of a plum, beaten and bruised. "I have to go now," she said, clarity returning, helped by the chill wind and the pain. She felt like she was clawing upward from underwater, toward the light; thoughts that had previously been dulled and numbed returned, the cogs in her brain creaking back to life. "I'm sorry, but…I have to go."

"Go?" the nurse asked, confused. "Go where?"

"I'm sorry," Christine said, taking a step back. "I'll be back soon. Take good care of him, okay?"

Before the nurse could respond Christine spun on her heels and stumbled away, back to the black car. She slid into the comfortable leather seat and started the ignition with shaking hands. A burning sensation started in her throat and began moving upward toward her eyes; she blinked back tears, amazed at how hot they were, like they should steam in the frigid air.

"You can do this, Christine," she coaxed herself, fingers gripping the steering wheel until they turned white. "Come on now. You can do this."

She put the car into drive and pulled away.

She made the turns without thinking; even though she hadn't been paying attention on her way to the hospital, some part of her must have been quietly making a map in the back of her mind, anticipating when she would need to drive those roads again. It seemed to take only seconds before she was there, pulling into the empty parking lot and stepping out of the car, staring up at the ancient, hulking building with its _Closed For Repairs_ sign dangling haphazardly from the front.

For a moment she wavered. Her hands were shaking so badly it was comical, visible tremors that made her fingers jump and jerk. She asked herself if she was being stupid, if she should just take her good fortune and run with it, never look back.

But then the wind blew fresh and cold in her face, carrying with it the clean icy tint of snow, and Christine knew that she had to do this, if only for her own peace of mind.

She pushed the back door open and walked into the dark.

Oddly enough, the light was still there, that guiding light that always led her to her destination. There was something hopeful and pathetic about the way it was left on, a front porch light burning in the night, hoping against hope that it will draw someone to it. Or maybe he was really expecting the police, maybe he really thought that she would turn him in, denounce him as a monster in front of the whole world. It hurt her, more than she expected, to think of him caged.

Now she was standing in front of his door; it was partially open, a sliver of light from the inside spilling onto the hallway floor. It took only the lightest brush of her fingers to make it swing inward on silent hinges, revealing the room she had so long hated, that she had just run away from. The bookshelf had been tipped over, books flung to the ground, and pieces of china and broken vases were scattered on the floor. Ripped and trodden-on paper covered every available space like flat snow. But suddenly it didn't seem so scary. Just…empty. Just a room.

No, not empty. Sitting on the couch, so thin and dark he nearly vanished into the leather, was Erik. His head was down, one hand on his face. The black mask rested on his knee, its eyes hollow and mocking. He hadn't even noticed her come in.

Christine felt the strangest sense of relief. She was afraid that by now he would have taken his own life. Perhaps he thought death too easy an escape.

She shifted on her feet, and his head shot up, his free hand instantly rising to affix the mask against his deformed skin.

There was silence for a long moment as he gaped at her. Then she smiled wearily and said: "Hello, Erik. We need to talk."

"Christine?" he finally croaked when he had found his voice, and despite his awe and despair the sound was still beautiful, a little weak, like a song gone flat. He stood shakily, his hands trembling nearly as much as hers had been. "I…I am dreaming. Or I have lost my mind. Again."

"I'm real, Erik," she said patiently. "But I'm not staying."

He blinked frantically; with his yellow eyes it looked like a light switching on and off at high speeds. "Then why are you here? Why did you return?"

Christine drew herself up and took a steadying breath. "To save your life."

He was deathly quiet, then said, with a patronizing air that almost resembled his normal way of speaking: "And why would you want to do that?" He paused for just a fraction of a second, then continued, his voice growing stronger. "Poor, deluded Christine. It's a pity you came all this way, my dear, on a fool's errand. Didn't anyone tell you that I can't be saved?"

"Sit down and shut up," Christine said, in a voice so sharp it surprised even her. "Your time for talking is done, Erik. It's my turn now."

Once again he was at a loss for words. It was almost comical, how he gaped at her. "Christine…"

"Sit _down_, Erik," she said firmly. "I am going to have my say. Sit down."

He sat, rather numbly, his hands curled around his bony knees. Christine pulled a squat chair so that it was across from him and sat in it with a sigh, pushing unruly hair (still stained and hardened with blood) away from her bruised forehead. She noticed absently that she had stopped shaking.

"What is it that you wish to speak with me about?" he asked quietly when she didn't say anything. Christine took a deep breath.

"Look, I'm going to talk, and you're not going to say anything. You can speak when I'm done. And when this is all over, I'm going to get out of this chair and leave this apartment forever. Do you understand me?"

He hesitated for a moment, so she hardened her voice and asked again. "_Do you understand me?_"

He nodded. Christine was amazed at how calm she felt, like the horror of the last few days had purged her of her ability to feel fear, like it had burned her down to her bones and now all that was left was certainty.

"Okay," she said, lacing her hands together and staring at her knees. "First of all, what you did to me was horrific and unforgivable, Erik. And not just these past few days. I mean the whole year, ever since I met you. Even before I met you. You turned my life into a nightmare. You need to know this. You need to know that you can't play with people like they are your own personal toys. It doesn't work like that, Erik. You nearly broke me. You _did_ break me."

"I didn't mean…" he started, looking at her pleadingly, but she cut him off.

"I'm speaking," she said in a low, oddly dangerous voice. "I haven't been able to speak for myself for over a year. You owe me this time, Erik." When he didn't answer she continued in a softer tone. "You said something to me once…seems like a long time ago. It was summertime, and we were watching the stars. You said that I was drowning, that if you hadn't found me I would have broken myself, maybe even taken my own life." She was silent for a moment, contemplating. "I denied it, then. I didn't want to believe it. But it was true. Life was… gray. And I was so alone, so very alone. It was like all of the joy inside of me had been snuffed out, and I was just… existing. Not living. I hadn't been living for a long time, when you found me."

She blinked back tears, her voice cracking. "What you did to me was wrong, Erik. You kidnapped me, and locked me up, and frightened me, and threatened my friends, and drove me to contemplate horrible things. You took everything away from me. But at some point, when I was fighting and clawing and so very, very desperate, I realized that I wanted to live again. _You made me want to live again._"

He was very still, like he was afraid that any movement would spook her and stop the flood of words that was washing into the room, cleansing it. He stared at her with something close to awe reflected in his yellow eyes. She looked at him, her face wan and drawn, premature lines cluttering her forehead, shadows under her eyes. He risked speaking, his words breathed so quietly they almost didn't exist.

"Why did you come back?"

She blinked, dazed, as if waking up from a dream. "I was at the hospital," she said slowly. "It is cold outside today, and the sky is blue, and the air smells like snow. And I want to live. And it just seemed…unfair, to me, that the person who made me want to live should die." Her shoulders shook, tears threatening to overwhelm her thin frame. "You saved me, Erik, whether you meant to or not, whether I wanted you to or not. It doesn't excuse what you did, but I…I would go through the whole damn thing over again if it meant that I would get to feel the way I do now. I can wake up in the morning and be _happy_, and every breath I take is like God, is so, so…" she trailed off, crying weakly into her hands. After a long, unsure moment he reached out and brushed her sleeve, and to his surprise she looked up and grasped his long fingers in her own, her face puffy and red, eyes sparked with something that he hadn't seen in a long time. Determination? Hope?

"So you see," she said earnestly, still sniffling, "why I can't let you die."

He stared at their entwined fingers with an unreadable expression on his face. "I'm afraid that I don't know what to say," he said after a moment. She shook her head.

"Don't say anything," she said. "Just promise me you'll live."

"If you leave and I live," he said in a low voice, "you'll be condemning me to…"

"Life is never a condemnation," she insisted.

The warmth from her hands was leaching into his cold skin; it burned, almost, a pleasant burning. "You will think well of me, then, if I live?" he murmured.

She smiled, just a hint at the corners of her mouth. "I already do."

It was a strange feeling, sitting down with the girl that he loved, the woman he had harassed and kidnapped and nearly driven to murder, to suicide, and to have her be that one person he had always wished for, the one person in all the world who cared whether he lived or died. "What will I do?" he asked a little helplessly.

"Make beautiful things," she said decisively. "I believe that you can be a better person, Erik. I wouldn't have come back if I didn't. You have a wonderful mind, a great capacity for good."

"A friend of mine said the same thing, a long time ago," he said, mostly to himself. "I didn't believe him then."

"Do you believe me?"

The question startled him. Erik looked at her eyes, huge and earnest and, despite everything that had happened to her, innocent. "You would not lie to me," he said. "That I do know. Not about this. Not after you came back." He paused, rolling the unfamiliar words around in his mouth. "And I am…I am sorry. I never wished…" He sighed. "You are very brave, to come back, after everything that I put you through. I am sorry."

"I know, Erik," Christine said, biting her lip to keep from crying again. "I know you are."

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "What happens now?"

Christine shook her head. "I...I don't know."

There seemed to be nothing else to say. The clock on the mantelpiece, miraculously unbroken, ticked a steady beat, like a mechanical heart. Her hands were still wrapped around his, and they had been pressed together long enough that their respective heat and cold was blended into something pleasant.

Outside, the afternoon sun began to fade, casting the world in oranges and purples, fire and ice, but inside the house nothing changed. The two figures remained seated, hands clasped, each marveling at the blood pumping in their veins and the sheer blessed realization that they were alive, and real, and for one very brief, fragile moment, not alone.

**The End**


End file.
